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Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies

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Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies

News publishers are increasingly deciding to sign deals with AI companies over the use of their content despite early doubts and a high-profile legal case from The New York Times.

The deals commonly include the use of news publishers’ content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the AI tech to build their own products.

This page will be updated when new deals are struck or legal actions are launched relating to news publishers and AI companies (latest: Hearst in the US signs deal with OpenAI while Mumsnet and The Center for Investigative Reporting instigate legal complaints against OpenAI).

OpenAI is reportedly offering news organisations between $1m and $5m per year to license their copyrighted content to train its models – although News Corp’s deal is reportedly worth more than $250m over five years.

Meanwhile Apple has reportedly been exploring AI deals with the likes of Conde Nast, NBC News and People and Daily Beast owner IAC to license their content archives, but nothing has yet been made public.

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Plenty of other news organisations are understood to be in negotiations with OpenAI while some, including the publisher of Mail Online, have suggested they are seriously considering their options legally.

But not all publishers want deals: Reach chief executive Jim Mullen told investors on 5 March that the UK’s largest commercial publisher is not in any “active discussions” with AI companies and suggested other publishers should hold off on deals to allow the industry to come at the issue with a position of solidarity.

He said: “We would prefer that we don’t get into a situation where we did with the referrers ten years ago and gave them access and we became hooked on this referral traffic and we would like it to be more structured. We produce content, which is really valuable, and we would like to license or agree how they use our base intelligence to actually inform the AI and the open markets. The challenge we have as an industry is that we need to be unified.

“I used to be the chairman of the NMA and if we stay together and work with it, then that’s a really strong position that we have, particularly with the Government to help us get to there. So I’m using this as a bit of a campaign, [it] only takes one publisher to break away and start doing deals and then it sort of disintegrates.”

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Press Gazette analysis in February found that more than four in ten of the 100 biggest English-language news websites have decided not to block AI bots from the likes of OpenAI and Google.

If you feel there is something missing that should be included, or you want to alert us to a new development, please contact charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk.

Suing

Mumsnet

UK parenting forum and publisher Mumsnet has launched legal action via an initial letter against OpenAI over the scraping of its site and its more than six billion words – “presumably” for the training of large language model ChatGPT.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told users: “Such scraping without permission is an explicit breach of our terms of use, which clearly state that no part of the site may be distributed, scraped or copied for any purpose without our express approval. So we approached Open AI and suggested they might like to licence our content.”

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In particular, she said, Mumsnet’s content would be valuable because it could help to counter the misogyny “baked in” to many AI models.

But, she continued: “Their response was that they were more interested in datasets that are not easily accessible online.”

Roberts said what OpenAI differs from Google’s scraping of the web for search purposes because there is a “clear value exchange in allowing Google to access that data, namely the resulting search traffic… The LLMs are building models like ChatGPT to provide the answers to any and all prospective questions that will mean we’ll no longer need to go elsewhere for solutions. And they’re building those models with scraped content from the websites they are poised to replace.”

Roberts continued: “At Mumsnet we’re in a stronger position than most because much of our traffic comes to us direct and though it’s a piece of cake for an LLM to spit out a Mumsnet-style answer to a parenting question I doubt they’ll ever be as funny about parking wars or as honest about relationships and they’ll certainly never provide the emotional support that sees around a thousand women a year helped to leave abusive partners by other Mumsnet users.

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“But if these trillion-dollar giants are simply allowed to pillage content from online publishers – and get away with it – they will destroy many of them.”

Roberts acknowledged it is “not an easy task” to go up against a big tech company like OpenAI but said “this is too important an issue to simply roll over”.

Responses from users on the forum contained a lot of “well done” and “good luck”.

The Center for Investigative Reporting

Non-profit news organisation The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Mother Jones (after a merger this year) and Reveal, is suing OpenAI and its largest shareholder Microsoft, it announced on 28 June.

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It said the companies had used its content “without permission or offering compensation” and accused them of “exploitative practices” in a lawsuit filed in New York.

Chief executive Monika Bauerlein said: “OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material.

“This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”

She added: “For-profit corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft can’t simply treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers as free raw material for their products.

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“If this practice isn’t stopped, the public’s access to truthful information will be limited to AI-generated summaries of a disappearing news landscape.”

Eight Alden Global Capital daily newspapers

Eight daily newspapers in the US owned by Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft, it was revealed on 30 April.

The newspapers involved in the lawsuit are: the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel in Florida, the Mercury News in San Jose, the Denver Post, the Orange County Register and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The lawsuit says the newspapers want recognition that they have a legal right over their content and compensation for the use of it in the training of AI tools so far.

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Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing Newspapers, the Alden subsidiaries that own the newspapers concerned, said: “We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense.

“They pay their engineers and programmers, they pay for servers and processors, they pay for electricity, and they definitely get paid from their astronomical valuations, but they don’t want to pay for the content without which they would have no product at all. That’s not fair use, and it’s not fair. It needs to stop.

“The misappropriation of news content by OpenAI and Microsoft undermines the business model for news. These companies are building AI products clearly intended to supplant news publishers by repurposing purloined content and delivering it to their users.

“Even worse, when they’re not delivering the actual verbatim reporting of our hard-working journalists, they misattribute bogus information to our news publications, damaging our credibility. We employ professional journalists who adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness. They are real people who go out into the world to conduct first-hand interviews and engage in actual investigations to produce our journalism.

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“Their work is vetted and checked by professional editors. The Mercury News has never recommended injecting disinfectants to treat COVID, and the Denver Post did not publish research that shows smoking cures asthma. These and other ChatGPT hallucinations are documented in our legal filings.”

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net

Three US progressive news and politics digital outlets filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Wednesday 28 February.

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net objected to the use of their articles to train ChatGPT. The Intercept also sued Microsoft, which has partnered with OpenAI to create a Bing chatbot.

Raw Story publisher Roxanne Cooper said: “Raw Story’s copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material.”

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CEO and founder John Byrne added: “It is time that news organisations fight back against Big Tech’s continued attempts to monetise other people’s work.”

The New York Times

The most high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft from a news publisher so far, The New York Times made a surprise announcement in the days after Christmas that it would seek damages, restitution and costs as well as the destruction of all large language models (LLMs) trained on its content.

OpenAI and NYT had been in negotiations for nine months but the news organisation felt no resolution was forthcoming and decided instead to share its concerns over the use of its intellectual property publicly. The success of the lawsuit will depend on the US court’s interpretation of “fair use” in copyright law – assuming the companies don’t find their way to a settlement first.

OpenAI previously said a “high-value partnership around real-time display with attribution in ChatGPT” was on the cards with the NYT before the news organisation surprised it by launching the lawsuit.

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The NYT said the two tech companies, which have a partnership centred around ChatGPT and Bing, have “reaped substantial savings by taking and using – at no cost” its content to create their models without paying for a licence. It added that the use of its content in chatbots “threatens to divert readers, including current and potential subscribers, away from The Times, thereby reducing the subscription, advertising, licensing, and affiliate revenues that fund The Times’s ability to continue producing its current level of groundbreaking journalism”.

In its response, filed on Monday 26 February, OpenAI argued: “In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product” to substitute for a NYT subscription. “Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.”

OpenAI accused the NYT of paying someone to hack its products and taking “tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results” in which verbatim paragraphs from articles were spat out by ChatGPT. “They were able to do so only by targeting and exploiting a bug (which OpenAI has committed to addressing) by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI’s terms of use,” it said.

“And even then, they had to feed the tool portions of the very articles they sought to elicit verbatim passages of, virtually all of which already appear on multiple public websites. Normal people do not use OpenAI’s products in this way.”

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Getty Images

Getty Images began legal proceedings against Stability AI in the UK in January 2023, claiming that the AI image company “unlawfully copied and processed” millions of its copyrighted images without a licence through its text-to-image model Stable Diffusion.

In December, the High Court in London ruled that Getty’s case could go to trial after Stability AI failed to persuade a judge that two aspects of the claim – relating to training and development as well as copyright – should be struck out.

Mrs Justice Joanna Smith said Getty’s claim has a “real prospect of success” in relation to Stable Diffusion’s “image-to-image feature” which the photo agency claimed allows users to make “essentially identical copies of copyright works”.

Who’s signed news AI deals?

Hearst

Newspaper and magazine giant Hearst has agreed a “content partnership” with OpenAI in the US, it announced on 8 October.

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Hearst said OpenAI products including ChatGPT will incorporate content from its US brands including Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Runner’s World and Women’s Health – more than 20 magazine titles and 40 newspapers in total. It does not include Hearst’s content in other countries like the UK.

Hearst said its content will “feature appropriate citations and direct links, providing transparency and easy access to the original Hearst sources” from ChatGPT.

Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson said: “As generative AI matures, it’s critical that journalism created by professional journalists be at the heart of all AI products.

“This agreement allows the trustworthy and curated content created by Hearst Newspapers’ award-winning journalists to be part of OpenAI’s products like ChatGPT — creating more timely and relevant results.”

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Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella added: “Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content. This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI’s products evolve.”

And OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the use of Hearst content “elevates our ability to provide engaging, reliable information to our users”.

Conde Nast

Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ publisher Conde Nast has become the latest publisher to sign a “multi-year partnership” relating to the display of its content in OpenAI products, it announced on 20 August.

Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has been outspoken about the risks generative AI poses to news businesses, telling US Congress “many” media companies could go out of business by the time any litigation passes through the courts and that “immediate action” should be taken through a clarification that content creators should be compensated for the use of their work in training.

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In a memo to staff he has now said the OpenAI deal helps to make up for revenue being lost through declining search traffic.

He wrote: “It’s crucial that we meet audiences where they are and embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property. This is exactly what we have found with OpenAI.

“Over the last decade, news and digital media have faced steep challenges as many technology companies eroded publishers’ ability to monetize content, most recently with traditional search. Our partnership with OpenAI begins to make up for some of that revenue, allowing us to continue to protect and invest in our journalism and creative endeavours.”

The deal will allow OpenAI to display content from Conde Nast brands in its products, including ChatGPT and its SearchGPT AI-driven search engine prototype.

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OpenAI explained what this means in a blog post: “With the introduction of our SearchGPT prototype, we’re testing new search features that make finding information and reliable content sources faster and more intuitive. We’re combining our conversational models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. SearchGPT offers direct links to news stories, enabling users to easily explore more in-depth content directly from the source.

“We plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future.

“We’re collaborating with our news partners to collect feedback and insights on the design and performance of SearchGPT, ensuring that these integrations enhance user experiences and inform future updates to ChatGPT.”

Lynch praised OpenAI for being “transparent and willing to productively work with publishers like us so that the public can receive reliable information and news through their platforms”.

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He continued: “This partnership recognises that the exceptional content produced by Condé Nast and our many titles cannot be replaced, and is a step toward making sure our technology-enabled future is one that is created responsibly.

“It is just the beginning and we will continue what we started in Washington earlier this year – the fight for fair deals and partnerships across the industry until all entities developing and deploying artificial intelligence take seriously, as OpenAI has, the rights of publishers.”

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Fortune

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic and Fortune (as well as Universal Music Group) have agreed to license their content to generative AI start-up Prorata.ai.

Prorata says it has a proprietary algorithm that can work out how much of various publishers’ content is used in an answer and share revenue accordingly. When it launches its own chatbot this autumn, it says, it will share 50% of the revenue from subscriptions with content creators.

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Read our full story about Prorata’s plan here.

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress owner Automattic

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress.com owner Automattic have become the first publishers to sign up to a revenue-sharing deal launched by AI search chatbot Perplexity.

When Perplexity introduces advertising via sponsored related questions within the next few months, signed-up publishers will be able to share the revenue generated by interactions where their content is referenced.

The programme also gives them access to analytics platform Scalepost.ai to see which of their articles show up frequently in Perplexity answers that get monetised, access to Perplexity tech to create their own custom answer engines for their websites, and one year of Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees for a year.

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Read our full story about the revenue-sharing programme, and Perplexity’s view on its relationship with publishers, here.

Time

Time has signed a “multi-year content deal and strategic partnership” with OpenAI, it revealed on 27 June.

The deal will give the ChatGPT creator access to Time’s 101-year-old archive and its current reporting to give up-to-date answers to users (with a citation and a link back to the website).

Time will also have access to OpenAI tech to build its own products and provide feedback to the tech company on the delivery of journalism through its tools.

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Time chief operating officer Mark Howard said: “Throughout our 101-year history, Time has embraced innovation to ensure that the delivery of our trusted journalism evolves alongside technology. This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing Time’s journalism to audiences globally.”

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the deal supports “reputable journalism by providing proper attribution to original sources.”

Vox Media

Vox Media has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI that means content – including archive journalism – from its brands including Vox, The Verge, Eater, New York Magazine, The Cut, Vulture and SB Nation will be surfaced on ChatGPT and also that it can use OpenAI’s tech to develop audience-facing and internal products.

The publisher said it will use OpenAI tech to create stronger creative optimisation and audience segment targeting on its first-party data platform Forte, which is used across all Vox Media sites and on its ad marketplace Concert.

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It will also use OpenAI tools to match people with the right products on its search-based affiliate commerce tool The Strategist Gift Scout.

Vox Media co-founder, chair and chief executive Jim Bankoff said: “This agreement aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audiences and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators.”

The Atlantic

The Atlantic also announced on 29 May it has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI meaning its articles will be discoverable within ChatGPT and the AI giant’s other products, with these results providing attribution and links to its website.

The partnership also means The Atlantic “will help to shape how news is surfaced and presented in future real-time discovery products”.

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The companies are also collaborating on product and tech, with The Atlantic’s product team given “privileged access” to OpenAI tech to give feedback and help shape the future of news in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products.

The Atlantic said it is currently developing an experimental microsite called Atlantic Labs “to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers”. It will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work.

Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, said: “We believe that people searching with AI models will be one of the fundamental ways that people navigate the web in the future.”

He added that the partnership will mean The Atlantic’s reporting is “more discoverable” to OpenAI’s millions of users and give the publisher “a voice in shaping how news is surfaced on their platforms”.

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OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said: “Enabling access to The Atlantic’s reporting in our products will allow users to more deeply interact with thought-provoking news. We are dedicated to supporting high-quality journalism and the publishing ecosystem.”

[Read more: What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subscribers]

WAN-IFRA

The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has announced a partnership with OpenAI for a programme, Newsroom AI Catalyst, designed to “help newsrooms fast-track their AI adoption and implementation to bring efficiencies and create quality content”.

The project will work with 128 newsrooms in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and South Asia providing expert guidance with funding and technical assistance from OpenAI.

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Each team will receive three months of learning modules, hands-on workshops, a mini hackathon, and a showcase. They will go back to their newsrooms with a clear plan on how to roll out AI.

Vincent Peyregne, chief executive of WAN-IFRA, said: “News enterprises across the globe have come under pressure from declining advertising and print subscription revenues. The adversity confronting news leaves communities without access to a shared basis of facts and shared values and puts democracy itself at risk.

“AI technologies can positively influence news organisations’ sustainability as long as you quickly grasp the stakes and understand how to turn it to your advantage.”

He added that OpenAI’s support will “help the newsrooms through the adoption of AI technologies to provide high-quality journalism that is the cornerstone of the news business”.

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OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content Tom Rubin said the programme is “designed to turbocharge the capabilities of 128 newsrooms” and he wants to help “cultivate a healthy, sustainable ecosystem that promotes quality journalism”.

News Corp

News Corp has signed a deal that includes the use of content from many of its major newsbrands in the UK, US and Australia in OpenAI’s large language models, it was announced on 22 May.

The partnership covers content from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, FN, and the New York Post in the US; The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun in the UK; and The Australian, news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Advertiser, and the Herald Sun in Australia.

The Wall Street Journal put a value on the deal of more than $250m over five years.

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News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson described OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his team as “principled partners… who understand the commercial and social significance of journalists and journalism.

“This landmark accord is not an end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are jointly committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantaneously.”

Dotdash Meredith

Dotdash Meredith, which publishes more than 40 titles including People, Instyle and Investopedia, on 7 May signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI that will see its content and links surfaced in ChatGPT responses.

OpenAI will incorporate real-time information from Dotdash sites into ChatGPT’s responses to queries and will use the publisher’s content to train its large language models. Dotdash meanwhile will receive assistance from OpenAI in developing both consumer-facing AI products and its AI-powered contextual advertising tool, D/Cipher.

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B2B giant Informa

Business information giant Informa announced a non-exclusive Partnership and Data Access Agreement with Microsoft (the main backer of OpenAI) in a trading update on 8 May. There has been an initial fee of $10m+ and then three more recurring annual payments.

Informa said the deal covers:

Improved Productivity: Explore how AI can enable more effective ways of working at Informa, streamlining operations, utilising Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enable Colleagues to work more efficiently, and enhancing the capabilities of Informa’s existing AI and data platforms (IIRIS);

Citation Engine: Collaborate to further develop automated citation referencing, using the latest technology to improve speed and accuracy;

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Specialist Expert Agent: Explore the development of specialised expert agents for customers such as authors and librarians to assist with research, understanding and new knowledge creation/sharing;

Data Access: Provide non-exclusive access to Advanced Learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems.”

Informa said the deal “protects intellectual property rights, including limits on verbatim text extracts and alignment on the importance of detailed citation references”.

Axel Springer (again)

Following its deal with OpenAI (see below) Axel Springer has announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft covering AI, advertising, content and cloud computing.

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On AI, they will partner to develop new AI-driven chat experiences to inform users using Axel Springer’s journalism.

They added: “In addition, Axel Springer will leverage Microsoft Advertising’s Chat Ads API for generative AI monetisation.”

Their existing adtech collaboration will be expanded from Europe into the US to encompass Politico, while users of Microsoft’s aggregator Start-MSN will have access to more premium content from Axel Springer’s brands. Finally the publisher will migrate its SAP solutions to Microsoft Azure.

Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Dopfner said: “In this new era of AI, partnerships are critical to preserving and promoting independent journalism while ensuring a thriving media landscape.

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“We’re optimistic about the future of journalism and the opportunities we can unlock through this expanded partnership with Microsoft.”

Microsoft chairman and chief executive Satya Nadella added: “Our expanded partnership with Axel Springer brings together their leadership in digital publishing with the full power of the Microsoft Cloud — including our ad solutions — to build innovative AI-driven experiences and create new opportunity for advertisers and users.”

Financial Times

On 29 April the Financial Times became the first major UK newsbrand to announce a deal with OpenAI.

The partnership involves up-to-date news content and journalism from the FT archive, meaning it is likely to assist with both real-time queries on ChatGPT and its continued training.

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FT Group chief executive John Ridding said: “This is an important agreement in a number of respects.

“It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI… Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material.”

Le Monde and Prisa Media

OpenAI announced on 13 March it had signed deals with French newsbrand Le Monde and Spanish publisher Prisa Media, which publishes El País, Cinco Días, As and El Huffpost.

The deals will mean ChatGPT users can surface recent content from both publishers through “select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles”, while their content will be allowed to contribute to training OpenAI’s models.

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Le Monde chief executive Louis Dreyfus said: “At the moment we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of Le Monde, this partnership with OpenAI allows us to expand our reach and uphold our commitment to providing accurate, verified, balanced news stories at scale.

“Collaborating with OpenAI ensures that our authoritative content can be accessed and appreciated by a broader, more diverse audience… Our partnership with OpenAI is a strategic move to ensure the dissemination of reliable information to AI users, safeguarding our journalistic integrity and revenue streams in the process.”

Carlos Nuñez, chairman and chief executive of Prisa Media added: “Joining forces with OpenAI opens new avenues for us to engage with our audience. Leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities allows us to present our in-depth, quality journalism in novel ways, reaching individuals who seek credible and independent content.

“This is a definite step towards the future of news, where technology and human expertise merge to enrich the reader’s experience.”

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Reuters

Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker told the Financial Times that the company had struck “a number” of deals with AI companies looking to use Reuters news content to train their models but he did not give any further details about who was involved in the deals or for how much.

He did say that “there appears to be a market price evolving”, adding: “These models need to be fed. And they may as well be fed by the highest-quality, independent fact-based content. We have done a number of those deals, and we’re exploring the potential there.”

However away from the Reuters news part of the business Thomson Reuters is suing Ross Intelligence for allegedly unlawfully copying content from its legal research platform Westlaw to train a rival AI-powered intelligence platform.

Unknown independent publishers

A handful of unnamed independent publishers are taking part in a private programme with Google, according to Adweek, which will see them paid a five-figure annual sum to take part in a trial of a new AI platform.

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The publishers are reportedly expected to produce a certain number of stories for a year and provide analytics and feedback in exchange.

Reddit

Social media platform Reddit has signed a deal allowing its content to be used by Google in the training of its AI tools. Reuters reported that the deal is worth around $60m per year.

Although not a news organisation, the Reddit deal is still a content licensing deal. There is also likely to be news media content copied within Reddit posts from users on the platform which could therefore fall within the remit of the deal.

Semafor (sort of)

Ben Smith and Justin B Smith’s start-up Semafor has secured “substantial” Microsoft sponsorship for an AI-driven news feed, although this was not built by the tech giant but by the newsroom itself.

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The deal, announced in February, will see Microsoft help Semafor refine the tool and makes the digital outlet one of the first newsrooms to heavily involve ChatGPT in their workflow.

Although not a content deal as such, the agreement indicates a level of co-operation rather than acrimony.

Axel Springer

In December Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer agreed a partnership with OpenAI that would see its content summarised within ChatGPT around the world, including otherwise paywalled content, with links and attribution. Axel Springer’s content is permitted to be used to train OpenAI products going forward.

Axel Springer can also use OpenAI technology to continue building its own AI products.

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Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said: “We are excited to have shaped this global partnership between Axel Springer and OpenAI – the first of its kind. We want to explore the opportunities of AI empowered journalism – to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level.”

American Journalism Project

In July 2023 OpenAI committed $5m to the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organisation working to support and rebuild local news organisations, to support the expansion of its work. It also pledged up to $5m in OpenAI API credits to help participating organisations try out emerging AI technologies.

American Journalism Project chief executive Sarabeth Berman said: “To ensure local journalism remains an essential pillar of our democracy, we need to be smart about the potential powers and pitfalls of new technology. In these early days of generative AI, we have the opportunity to ensure that local news organisations, and their communities, are involved in shaping its implications. With this partnership, we aim to promote ways for AI to enhance—rather than imperil—journalism.”

Associated Press

OpenAI and Associated Press signed a deal in July 2023 that allows the AI company to license the news agency’s content archive going back to 1985 for training purposes.

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The companies said they are also looking at “potential use cases for generative AI in news products and services” but did not share specifics.

Kristin Heitmann, AP senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said: “We are pleased that OpenAI recognises that fact-based, nonpartisan news content is essential to this evolving technology, and that they respect the value of our intellectual property. AP firmly supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.”

One professor told AP the deal could be particularly beneficial to OpenAI because it would mean they can still use a wealth of trusted content even if they lose other lawsuits and are forced to delete training data as a result, from The New York Times for example.

Shutterstock

In July 2023 Shutterstock expanded its partnership with OpenAI with a six-year agreement allowing access to a wealth of training data including images, videos, music and associated metadata.

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For its part, Shutterstock gets “priority access” to new OpenAI technology and can offer DALL-E’s text-to-image capabilities directly within its platform.

The post Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies appeared first on Press Gazette.

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German Car Supplier Files for Bankruptcy – 190 Jobs at Risk

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German Car Supplier Files for Bankruptcy – 190 Jobs at Risk

The company’s financial struggles had been public knowledge since August when it announced it was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Despite the filing, production at the factory continues for now, although the 190 employees face an uncertain future, as orders have dried up. The company’s last remaining orders were completed at the end of September.

Volker Böhm, the lawyer managing the bankruptcy proceedings from Schultze & Braun, had previously stated in a press release that all options were being considered to keep the company running. However, efforts to secure a solution have not yet succeeded.

Flabeg Automotive and Böhm now hope that investors can be found to rescue the company. According to Boosted, several car manufacturers have expressed interest in maintaining production.

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Ratan Tata, leading Indian businessman, 1937-2024

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Ratan Tata, who was one of India’s best known businesspeople and led his family conglomerate on a bold international expansion, has died aged 86.

An industrialist from an influential Zoroastrian Parsee clan, Tata wanted his family’s storied corporate group to wield clout beyond the nation it helped to build — but found its execution did not always match his grand vision.

Born in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1937, Tata’s life spanned a period of enormous change for India — from winning independence from Britain in 1947 to becoming the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2022. 

Tata was “an uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation”, said Natarajan Chandrasekaran, current chair of the group holding company, in a statement.

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Attending prestigious prep schools in Mumbai and graduating from New York state’s Cornell University in architecture studies, Tata first worked in Los Angeles, where he said he “fell in love and almost got married”. 

But the relationship disintegrated after he returned to Mumbai to spend time with his ailing grandmother — a stabilising presence in his childhood after his parents’ divorce — and the 1962 war between India and China deterred his would-be partner from joining him.

Tata worked on the steel shop floor of the family business, which was founded by his great-grandfather in 1868, before moving into management. In 1991, he took over as chair from his uncle, JRD Tata. His accession coincided with India’s economic opening to the world, and under his leadership the group ventured abroad.

Tata holds a model F-18 while standing next to US pilot Todd Nelson
Tata, a flying enthusiast, poses with a US pilot ahead of flight in a F-18 in 2007 © Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

It began by buying British tea maker Tetley Tea in 2000. By 2007, Tata had completed a takeover of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus, which eventually cost $13bn and left it owning a clutch of UK factories. The timing, just before the global financial crisis, was disastrous. Tata later said the UK plants were “underinvested and overmanned”.

The group announced it wanted to divest in 2016 and this September closed its blast furnaces at the UK’s biggest steelworks in Port Talbot. Under a deal with the UK government, it plans to develop greener forms of steelmaking at the plant.  

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In March 2008, Tata bought British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover from Ford for $2.3bn. In just two years, the Indian group founded under British colonial rule had become the UK’s biggest manufacturing employer. Critics who decried the deal as value-destructive were briefly silenced when JLR contributed strongly to Tata Motors profits three years later, but JLR has since had a chequered record. 

Tata’s pet projects included the Tata Nano, an ultra-cheap car marketed at Rs100,000, then worth $2,600, to help bring millions more middle-class Indians to the automotive market. But sales of the Nano were dismal and Tata Motors took years to recover from its costly failure. “I’m very depressed,” Tata said of the Nano’s flop.

The two men pose with a bright yellow nano bedecked with flowers
Tata and Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, at the inauguration of a Tata Nano factory in 2010 © Amit Dave/Reuters

More recently, as group chair emeritus, Tata enthusiastically supported the reacquisition of national carrier Air India, which was founded by JRD Tata but nationalised in 1953, in a deal that valued the struggling airline at $2.4bn. In a tweet welcoming Air India back into the family fold, Tata said his uncle “would have been overjoyed”.

Tata had cultivated a reputation for straight-dealing, and despite an enthusiasm for private aircraft and flashy sports cars, presented a modest lifestyle relative to the ostentatious spending of fellow Indian tycoons. He was revered in Mumbai as India Inc’s elder statesman, and praised for his humility.

In 2014, Britain awarded Tata an honorary knighthood for his contribution to relations with India, investment in the UK and philanthropy. But his genteel personal brand was damaged by a bitter dispute with Cyrus Mistry, his successor as group chair.

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Mistry was a fellow member of the tight-knit business community of Parsees — descendants of Persian Zoroastrians who migrated to the subcontinent between the eighth and 10th centuries — but was abruptly ousted in a boardroom coup in 2016.

Mistry accused Tata of a catalogue of governance failures including having abused his position as chair of the Tata Trusts, a philanthropic trust that owns the majority stake in Tata Group holding company Tata Sons. Mistry claimed Tata had interfered in the running of Tata Sons, an allegation he denied.

In a drawn-out legal and media battle that sullied the group’s reputation, the family patriarch was ultimately the winner, vindicated by a Supreme Court ruling in 2021. Bad blood remained between the conjoined houses of Tata and Mistry — the latter still owns 18 per cent of Tata Sons — and Ratan Tata did not offer any public condolence when Mistry died in a car accident in 2022, aged 54.

The two men smile at an event in 2012
Tata’s bitter battle with his successor Cyrus Mistry, right, damaged the group’s image © Punit Paran/AFP/Getty Images

An animal lover who famously ordered that stray dogs be allowed to lounge in the lobby of the Tata headquarters in Mumbai, Tata never married and had no children.

“If I had a family, I could not have spent as much of my time involved with the group. And, things would be very different, in terms of eating, sleeping, living for your job,” he told the FT just before his 2012 retirement as group chair.

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While the overseas expansion he led was at times messy, it created what is now one of India’s most outward-looking and modern corporate forces.

Chandrasekaran, the group’s current chair and the first not related to the founder by family or marriage, had to “stop the bleeding” at its debt-laden companies. But Tata is now at the forefront of business in India across a range of sectors from electric vehicles to renewable energy.

Mukesh Ambani, head of the rival conglomerate Reliance Industries, said Tata’s death was “a big loss, not just to the Tata Group, but to every Indian”. “Ratan Tata was a visionary industrialist and a philanthropist, who always strove for society’s greater good,” Ambani said.

“I would hope that people would say that I was able to lead the group with dignity and that I tried to do the right thing,” Tata said in 2012 of his legacy. “You never succeed, having that said, because you always have upset somebody or another, but I think that’s what I would like to be remembered for.”

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Ratan Tata, ex-chair of one of India’s largest companies, dies aged 86

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FILE PHOTO: Tata Motors' Chairman Ratan Tata addresses journalists during the first media day of the 78th Geneva Car Show at the Palexpo, in Geneva, Switzerland March 4, 2008. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

Ratan Tata, a former chairman of India’s oldest conglomerate, as well Tata Steel and Jaguar Land Rover, has died at a Mumbai hospital at the age of 86.

Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran confirmed Mr Tata’s death and described him as his “friend, mentor, and guide” in a statement.

Mr Tata was admitted to the Breach Candy Hospital in south Mumbai this week.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi described Mr Tata as a visionary leader, a compassionate and an extraordinary human being.

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“He provided stable leadership to one of India’s oldest and most prestigious business houses. At the same time, his contribution went far beyond boardrooms,” Mr Modi said on X.

FILE - Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata reacts as he speaks during a press conference prior to the launch event of the Tata Nano in Mumbai, India, March 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, File)
Ratan Tata reacts as he speaks during a press conference prior to the launch event of the Tata Nano in Mumbai in 2009 (Photo: Gautam Singh/AP)

Mr Tata was born and grew up in Bombay, now Mumbai, during the British Raj.

He travelled to the US to study in the 50s, graduating with a degree in architecture at Cornell University, before returning to India.

In 1962, he began working for the group his great-grandfather had founded nearly a century earlier, Tata.

He worked in several Tata companies, including Telco, now Tata Motors Ltd, as well as Tata Steel Ltd, later making his mark by erasing losses and increasing market share at group unit National Radio & Electronics Company.

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In 1991, he took the helm of the conglomerate when his uncle JRD Tata stepped down – the passing of the baton coming just as India embarked on radical reforms that opened up its economy to the world and ushered in an era of high growth.

FILE - Leading Indian industrialists Jamshed J. Godrej, right, and Ratan Tata, left, chat during a business meeting in Calcutta, Jan. 4, 1995. (AP Photo, File)
Ratan Tata, left, chats with fellow Indian industrialist Jamshed J Godrej at a meeting in Calcutta in 1995 (Photo: AP)

In one of his first steps, Ratan Tata sought to rein in the power of some heads of Tata Group’s companies, enforcing retirement ages, promoting younger people to senior positions and ramping up control over companies.

He founded telecommunications firm Tata Teleservices in 1996 and took IT firm Tata Consultancy Services , the group’s cash cow, public in 2004.

But to grow properly, the group determined it needed to look beyond Indian shores.

It “was the quest for growth and changing the ground rules to say that we could grow by acquisitions which earlier we had never done,” he said in an interview with the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2013.

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The group purchased British tea firm Tetley in 2000 for $432m (£330m) and Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2007 for $13bn (£9.9bn), at the time the biggest takeover of a foreign firm by an Indian company.

Tata Motors then acquired British luxury auto brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co in 2008 for $2.3 (£1.5bn).

His pet projects at Tata Motors included the Indica – the first car model designed and built in India – as well as the Nano, touted as the world’s cheapest car. He contributed initial sketches for both models.

The Indica was a commercial success. The Nano, however, priced at just 100,000 rupees (about £900) and the culmination of Ratan Tata’s dream to produce an affordable car for India’s masses, was hurt by initial safety issues and bungled marketing. It was discontinued a decade after its launch.

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A licensed pilot who would occasionally fly the company plane, Ratan Tata never married and was known for his quiet demeanour, relatively modest lifestyle and philanthropic work.

About two-thirds of share capital of Tata Sons, the group’s holding company, is held by philanthropic trusts.

His leadership at Tata was not without controversy – most notably a bitter public feud after the company ousted Cyrus Mistry, a scion of the billionaire Shapoorji Pallonji clan, as chairman of Tata Sons in 2016.

The Tata Group said Mistry had failed to turnaround poorly performing businesses while Mistry accused Ratan Tata, who was chairman emeritus of the conglomerate, of interfering and creating an alternate power centre at the group.

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After he stepped back from the Tata Group, Ratan Tata became known as a prominent investor in Indian start-ups, backing a plethora of companies including digital payments firm Paytm , Ola Electric, a unit of ride hailing firm Ola, and home and beauty services provider Urban Company.

This story is being updated.

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Private lender HPS exploring $10bn sale to bidders including BlackRock

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HPS Investment Partners is talking to potential buyers including BlackRock as the top leadership of the private credit firm looks towards a deal that could value the business at more than $10bn, according to people familiar with the process.

HPS, which had $117bn in assets under management as of June, is also exploring an initial public offering. It has been seen as one of the few freestanding options for large financial companies looking to add a substantial private credit manager.

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BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager with $10.6tn in assets, has been openly seeking deals that would boost its presence in alternative investments including private equity, private credit and infrastructure. 

Chief executive Larry Fink has targeted that area for growth in part because it carries higher fees than the index products that have been BlackRock’s bread and butter. It closed the $12.5bn purchase of Global Infrastructure Partners earlier this month. BlackRock manages $85bn in private credit assets. 

One person familiar with the talks called it a “giant AUM land grab” by BlackRock in alternative assets.

The people said it was not clear whether a deal would result, adding that HPS, which was spun out of JPMorgan, has had conversations with other potential partners. HPS declined to comment. BlackRock said it does not comment on market rumours. News of the talks between HPS and BlackRock was reported earlier by Bloomberg.

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The talks coincide with conversations inside HPS about its listing. It has held early meetings with would-be investors and had initially indicated it planned to float in late September. But recently the firm delayed those plans, telling investors it could list after November’s US presidential election.

The move was seen as an indication that HPS might pursue a sale instead, one potential investor said. HPS had previously held talks with CVC about a combination, according to people familiar with the matter.

A person familiar with the deal talks said participants have been hoping conversations with potential IPO investors would provide more clarity on the valuation of the private credit firm.

In recent months HPS has worked to expand its own operations beyond that core business, selling a stake in its business to Guardian Life Insurance. In return, the insurance company handed HPS nearly $30bn in assets to manage.

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The company was founded as a division of JPMorgan by three Goldman Sachs alumni. They include current HPS CEO Scott Kapnick, a former head of investment banking at Goldman.

There have been a number of tie-ups between private credit specialists with either traditional asset managers or private equity firms as more companies turn to non-bank sources for their borrowing. PE groups view unlisted credit as a way of generating more stable returns than more cyclical buyout and real estate businesses.

TPG last year agreed to buy Angelo Gordon for $2.7bn. That followed Brookfield’s purchase of a majority stake in Oaktree in 2019 and Franklin Templeton’s and T Rowe Price’s respective acquisitions of Benefit Street Partners and Oak Hill Advisors.

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72 Hours in the California Desert, Tommy Bahama Style

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Nestled within picturesque Indian Wells and surrounded by the stunning Santa Rosa Mountains, Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa offers a blend of laid-back luxury and island-inspired charm. The resort is a desert stand-out, not just for its lush surroundings and gracious accommodations, but also for its embodiment of the Tommy Bahama lifestyle—a celebration of relaxation, adventure, and the art of leisure. Whether lounging by one of the resort’s two onsite pools, indulging in delicious cuisine and crafted cocktails at the brand’s varied outlets, or exploring the stunning desert landscape, a Tommy Bahama experience delivers some of the best of the greater Coachella Valley.

The Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa pool features a Santa Rosa Mountain backdrop

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DAY ONE:

Check in at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & SpaImmerse yourself in the expansive 11-acre property with a leisurely walking tour of the resort’s garden pathways that are lined with fragrant citrus trees. (You can actually pick what you like and the resort restaurant will juice the fruit for you.) Play a game of bocce or relax amongst the olive tree grove which is especially enchanting at dusk when illuminated by hanging lanterns and outdoor fire pits.

Grab a mid-day bite at poolside Chiki Palm, with its menu of fresh-made dishes including the All-American BurgerPoblano Chicken Quesadilla and Ahi Poke Bowl. Pair your meal with a frozen tiki cocktail (or two) served in a poolside pouch while relaxing at the resort’s saltwater pool. Reserve a cabana for enhanced privacy and comfort.

The Olive Tree Grove at Tommy Bahama Miramonte is enchanting

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Explore the Rosa Boutique, featuring a curated selection of luxury goods from local brands and Tommy Bahama merchandise exclusive to the resort. Get your gift shopping done early, and treat yourself with an assortment of dressy linens, swimsuits, coverups and sports equipment like Tommy Bahama-printed pickleball paddles and golf club head covers, along with beautiful jewelry, sunglasses, hats, footwear, towels and more.

Enjoy dinner at the resort’s signature restaurant, Grapefruit Basil, a sophisticatd yet relaxed space spotlighting farm-to-table California-inspired cuisine. Savor dinner selections such as Macadamia Nut Crusted HalibutSeared Ahi TunaMojo Brick Chicken and Santa Carota Cowboy Ribeye. Make sure to start with a seasonally crafted cocktail. Dine inside or out, where a dramatic fire wall provides a sultry glow.  

End the night with drinks under the stars in the olive grove while enjoying nightly, live acoustic music ranging from pop to Latin to classical.

Grapefruit Basil is the resort’s flagship restaurant

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DAY TWO: 

Get your body moving with your choice of wellness activities. Try the resort’s complimentary guided desert hike or choose from a rotating schedule of classes like aerial yoga, meditative sound baths ,and wellness workshops.

Drop into Grapefruit Basil for all day brunch and enjoy elevated versions of classics like Dungeness Crab Cake BenedictBrioche Bananas Foster French Toast and Lobster and Triple Cream Frittata. Or keep it light with a Baby Gem Caesar or Burrata Bruschetta.

Spend the afternoon exploring the shops on El Paseo, Palm Desert’s main street of fabulous retail shops. Visit the Tommy Bahama Home Store to peruse indoor and outdoor home furnishings and unique home décor, and take advantage of a free design consultation.

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Walk across the street and continue your shopping adventure at the recently renovated Tommy Bahama retail store where lifestyle offerings embrace the brand’s ethos of casual sophistication. You’ll find men’s and women’s sportswear, swimwear and activewear, accessories, beach gear, and home goods.

Tommy Bahama Restaurant & Bar features the ‘Best Patio in the Desert’

Discover the “Best Patio in the Desert” at the Tommy Bahama Restaurant & Bar. Enjoy stunning views of the San Jacinto mountains while dining on fresh, tropical-inspired dishes including Scallop SlidersAhi Tuna TacosChilean Sean Bass and Kona Coffee-Crusted Ribeye. Choose from a selection of hand-crafted cocktails to perfectly complement your meal like the Classic MojitoMai Tai, or the Pineapple Paradiso.  

DAY THREE:

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Before or after breakfast, pamper yourself with a morning treatment at the luxurious and award-winning Spa Rosa at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & SpaFeaturing a menu of desert-inspired treatments and rituals inspired by the local landscape, Spa Rosa’s signature skincare and body treatments include the head-to-toe Island State of Mind with tropical scents of papaya, pineapple and coconut; the 75-minute Marlin Man package with light stretching, steamed-towel deep cleanse and healthy hydration products; and the half-day Daydream to Life, is a wellness journey that includes a luxurious bath soak, exfoliation, facial, custom massage, wellness class and other amenities.

Spa Rosa at Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa

Spend the day in Palm Springs, a walkable city that blends kitschy charm with natural beauty. Explore the prime strip of Palm Canyon Drive with its cute boutiques and colorful locals. Take selfies at the famous statue of Marilyn Monroe or visit the Palm Springs Art Museum. Take an incredible ride and view on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway; head to the unique beauty of Joshua Tree National Park for hiking and rock climbing; or gain a broader look at the outdoor desert region with Red Jeep Tours.

Photo courtesy of Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

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For lunch, a snack, or early dinner, visit the Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar on Palm Canyon Drive. With daily Happy Hour from 3-6pm, the outdoor Marlin Bar is a relaxed refuge where you can unwind with a cocktail, light fare, and organic soft-serve ice cream—a perfect way to end the visit before departing this chic desert sanctuary.

Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar

My desert exploration was enhanced by my use of Volvo’s new C40 Rechargean all-electric compact that combines modern design, sustainability, and advanced technology. The spacious cabin features ergonomic design which was perfect for my drive from Santa Monica, to Indian Wells, to Rancho Palos Verdes. (A large panoramic sunroof adds to the airy feel of the interior.) The C40 is equipped with a large touchscreen infotainment system powered by Google, offering built-in navigation, voice commands, and access to various apps. It also includes a premium sound system for an enhanced audio experience. Volvo is renowned for its safety innovations, and the C40 comes with a suite of advanced safety technologies, including adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and automated emergency braking. With fast-charging capabilities, I was able to recharge the battery to about 80% in about 35 minutes at a DC fast charger. While the range varies, it’s sufficient for many long-distance trips, and the network of fast chargers is continually expanding, easing range anxiety. The overall design and layout contributed to a serene driving experience. I loved it, and I may well become the owner of this beautiful automobile.

Volvo C40 Recharge. Photo by Fran Miller

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Photos courtesy of Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa, unless otherwise noted

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Doctors 'sleeping on floor' after Yorkshire hospital rest room turned into office

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Doctors 'sleeping on floor' after Yorkshire hospital rest room turned into office


The problem has remained unsolved since April

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