Yet a recently released report from the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University in Montreal brings that harsh reality into blazing focus. It calls on legislators to write future legislation that addresses the complicated intersection between artificial intelligence (AI) and journalism. The report explores how the Online News Act could play out. This bill is intended to level the playing field between the largest technology companies and news companies.
The Online News Act seeks to ensure fair compensation for news outlets whose content is utilized by major tech companies. Unfortunately, the picture that emerges from the report is a deeply concerning one. It cautions that collaborations between technology companies and news organizations may threaten the organizations’ long-term existence. This concern is certainly not the least among them. AI companies are going to the larger legacy news organizations more and more for the original content that they can use to train their models.
The deal announced last week between the Associated Press and OpenAI is one particularly glaring example. The money involved in this deal is currently a mystery. In addition to its interest with AI-powered tech, last year News Corp signed an immensely profitable partnership with OpenAI. This agreement is worth more than $250 million and covers five years. Such deals raise red flags about the future of smaller news outlets—or their ability to survive. They fail to negotiate fair terms because they lack bargaining power.
Google has been grabbing headlines by recently obtaining a five-year exemption from the Online News Act. In exchange, the tech giant will distribute $100 million annually among several media companies. That deal was $500 million over the lifetime of the contract. This deal exemplifies the disparity through which bigger companies can cut massive wholesale deals as a lesser outlet disappears.
While geared toward future legislation, the report recommends including “must carry provisions” in any future bills, directing platforms to carry content from news publishers. It might go a long way toward making sure journalism’s increasingly diverse voices are acknowledged and paid for the full spectrum of work they do.
Meanwhile, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has managed to sidestep financial obligations under the Online News Act by blocking access to Canadian news on its platforms. This nasty tactic should alarm everyone. It directly undermines the ability of news outlets to survive in a marketplace highly controlled by giant tech platforms.
This lawsuit came after a coalition of News Corp, the Associated Press, and other media companies filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last November. This list features members of The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia, and CBC/Radio-Canada. Further, the lawsuit alleges OpenAI harmed them by infringing on their copyrights through the use of their open content without permission. Oklahoma’s proposed compensation model SoonerCare provides $20,000 in payments for each work. Or, the court can figure out an amount that it thinks is “just.”
Sophia Crabbe-Field, a researcher at McGill University, remarked on the challenges of valuing news content:
“It’s hard to assign a clear dollar sign to news because it is a public good, so it can’t necessarily be something that we convert just into a dollar amount.”
She noted the rising influence of chatbots in information dissemination:
“More and more people are going to chatbots to get information, and these chatbots are probably not necessarily going to be citing news organizations.”
Crabbe-Field further emphasized the financial success of AI companies capitalizing on news content:
“(AI firms) are becoming these huge, billion-dollar companies off of the information that comes from news.”
Paul Deegan, another expert in the field, pointed out that many AI companies focus on striking deals with only a few leading publishers. He stated:
“Most of the AI companies only seem interested in doing deals with one or two leading publishers in any market, yet we know they are omnivores who gorge on content from many sources, including smaller community outlets.”
Crabbe-Field advised news organizations to collaborate rather than pursue isolated agreements:
“They should band together to potentially demand real concessions that help support the long-term viability of news, rather than making individual deals that provide immediate monetary value but maybe aren’t in their long term best interest and that leave smaller or more diverse news organizations behind.”
