Major news sites try to close off OpenAI from their articles, while some embrace the tech
Creepy crawlies… A new report from the Reuters Institute said that by the end of last year, nearly half of top news sites had blocked OpenAI’s crawlers to stop ChatGPT from ingesting their content. Crawlers are bots that scrape data from across the web. AI companies like OpenAI and Google use crawlers to collect content for training their models. Having access to reputable news info is crucial for AI companies, which have pitched their bots as the future of search.
600+ news publishers have opted out of crawlers from OpenAI, Google, or Common Crawl (a nonprofit).
Asking nicely: Articles from sites like The New York Times are easily discoverable, and many question whether blocking AI crawlers can effectively protect content.
Paper trail: Even if blockers fail, the act of opting out may give publishers a stronger case in copyright-infringement suits.
Two roads diverged in an AI wood… and they’re both less traveled by. A division is forming in how publishers and creators respond to the threat from AI. Some are taking the courtroom route: The Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging they trained their bots on millions of Times articles. Several copyright lawsuits have been brought by authors including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin.
The other approach: Some publishers are embracing AI by striking licensing deals. OpenAI said it would pay Axel Springer (Business Insider, Politico) to use its content in ChatGPT, and Microsoft teamed up with Semafor for AI-assisted news.
It’s unclear who’ll come out on top… If courts find that AI companies infringed on copyrights, publishers could be owed big $$ and companies like OpenAI could see more suits (and lose access to sources they rely on). But publishers that negotiate early licensing deals with AI companies may have a leg up if courts don’t rule in their favor. With all the traffic they’ve already lost to Facebook and Google, publishers might be eager to set a precedent in which they have a financial gain.