After a commotion about the use of copyright materials to train the LLMs, especially a suit of the NYT against OpenAI, the content deals between AI companies and top publishers are coming fast and furious. On Wednesday, May 22, OpenAI signed a deal with News Corp. of Murdoch, said to be worth $250 million over five years. It is the biggest content deal.
It is an acknowledgement of the maxim that there is a premium for premium journalism. The terms of the deal are not known. But it is assumed that the sum of the deal includes compensation (in the form of cash and credits) for use of OpenAI technology.
In April 2024, the Financial Times struck a deal with OpenAI. Other OpenAI deals have included Associated Press, Axel Springer and Le Monde. Without a deal, OpenAI and other AI companies are likely to use their content clandestinely without paying for it. AI.
Though deals have been struck now, it is highly likely that OpenAI long ago may have ingested content. The current payment to ‘get access’ to part of its brazen scraping of information in the public domain. In fact, these deals are settlements, and one of the terms of the settlement could be that the publishers would not drag OpenAI to court.
Litigation is expensive and time consuming. The NYT suit against OpenAI till it is fought up to SC will take a long time. It is sensible for the publishers to take the deal. There is no opting out of AI. It guzzles their content whether there is a deal or no deal.
These deals are not transparent and ethical. There should be an equitable system. There should be public policy, rather than secretive deals. There could be a centralized platform controlled by a consortium of publishers. They could aggregate content. They make the content available to AI companies. It will be against a fee. The fee will be based on an agreed criterion.
The principle that should prevail is that those who create content should have control over it.
OpenAI has signed content and product partnerships with the Atlantic and Vox Media. Several media firms are signing deals with OpenAI which will give it access to their news content and archives. Earlier it had signed a deal with media conglomerate and the Wall Street Journal owner News Corp.