• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 7, 2025

The battle to force big tech firms to pay for content they help themselves to is the subject of an ad campaign titled “Support Responsible AI.”

The News/Media Alliance and its members launched the campaign on Monday. The goal is to persuade Washington to make AI platforms pay for content.  

Hundreds of print and digital publishers will run the ads this week, using the one weapon they have besides the courts: public opinion.  

One ad is headlined “Stop AI Theft,” another says “Warning: AI Steals From You, Too.” And a third asks readers to “Keep Watch on AI.” 

The campaign demands that: 

• Big Tech and AI companies fairly compensate content creators.
• Transparency, sourcing, and attribution in AI-generated content now be mandatory. 
• Monopolies are prevented from using coercive and anti-competitive practices.

“America’s creative industries invest significant resources to provide quality content that benefits users and society, “but that investment relies upon centuries-old IP protections that exist to incentivize the creative process,” says Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance. “We must continue to protect American creators from exploitation and abuse by Big Tech and AI companies.”

Coffey adds that Big Tech and AI companies are “using publishers’ own content against them, taking it without authorization or compensation to power AI products that pull advertising and subscription revenue away from the original creators of that content.”

She continues, “The news media industry is not anti-AI—many companies and creators use AI tools in their work. Rather, we seek a balanced ecosystem where AI is built responsibly, providing return to the quality content that fuels its intelligence and drives international competitiveness.”

We expect this will create some well-deserved buzz.