After a complaint from the New York Times, OpenAI shows its willingness to pay for news content. It sits at the negotiating table with several major American news media outlets.

Bloomberg writes that OpenAI has started negotiations with CNN, Fox and Time. It wants to strike a fair deal with American new media to feed news articles into its AI models. In the case of CNN and Fox, it would not only be the use of written texts, but also visual content.

Just before the end of the year, OpenAI (and Microsoft) received another complaint from another American newspaper, the New York Times. The newspaper claims that OpenAI has used its content for years to update current knowledge about its AI models. News articles are protected by copyright and therefore OpenAI should have paid appropriate compensation or at least asked for permission to use the articles.

Shocked by the allegations

OpenAI’s complaint does not come in a vacuum. There is also increasing protest against the company from the writing world. Both fiction and nonfiction authors are tired of ChatGPT simply reproducing their works. Visual AI tools like Dall-E are also not without controversy, as they are also trained on copyrighted photos and works of art.

OpenAI itself recently responded to these allegations. The company responded that it was shocked by the complaint and defended itself by saying it was impossible to train AI models without using copyrighted material. In an attempt at reconciliation, OpenAI is now showing its willingness to reach an agreement that news publishers can also agree to.

Copyright protection is also included in the upcoming European AI law. This will force OpenAI to also negotiate with news publishers in Europe.