• by Ray Schultz , June 19, 2023

Publishers and major tech companies holding talks on AI copyright issues, The Financial Times reports.  

The tech companies include OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Adobe. Among the publishers are News Corp, Axel Springer, The New York Times and The Guardian, according to The Financial times.

The talks between individual publishers and tech companies could lead to payment of a subscription-style fee for content generated by AI text chatbots and image generators such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. 

For its part, the Financial Times is also participating in discussions. 

“Copyright is a crucial issue for all publishers,” the Financial Times says. “As a subscriptions business, we need to protect the value of our journalism and our business model. Engaging in constructive dialogue with the relevant companies, as we are, is the best way to achieve that.” 

Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp., argued that 

 “[media’s] collective IP is under threat and for which we should argue vociferously for compensation,” when speaking at INMA last month, according to The Financial Times. 

Thomson added that AI was “designed so the reader will never visit a journalism website, thus fatally undermining that journalism,” the report continues.