OpenAI Strikes Deal: $250 Million Payment to News Corp for AI Training Content!

OpenAI has agreed to pay News Corp $250 million for the rights to use its journalism content in training its AI systems.

OpenAI has announced that it will begin paying media organizations for access to their articles to train its AI models. As part of this initiative, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is set to pay News Corp a reported $250 million over the next five years for access to its journalism content. Through this partnership, OpenAI will gain access to both current and archived material from News Corp's diverse range of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, The Sun, the New York Post, the Times, and the Sunday Times.

In recent months, OpenAI has faced lawsuits from media outlets regarding its use of millions of articles to train its chatbots. Initially, the company trained its AI models using publicly available data scraped from the internet, often without explicit consent from content creators. However, this approach raised legal and ethical concerns, leading to lawsuits from major publishers like The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. With the new $250 million deal, OpenAI will now pay for access to the high-quality, factually accurate data sourced from these journalism websites.

This agreement grants OpenAI access to a vast library of news content, which it will leverage to enhance the accuracy and relevance of its AI models. Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, generative AI has gained widespread popularity. However, the effectiveness of AI-generated responses largely depends on the quality of the training data. By utilizing updated and factually accurate data from reputable journalism websites, OpenAI aims to further refine its models, ensuring that its AI can provide reliable and insightful information.

"Our partnership with News Corp is a significant milestone for both journalism and technology. We deeply appreciate News Corp’s long-standing reputation as a leader in delivering timely news globally, and we look forward to enriching our users’ access to its exceptional reporting," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a statement. "Together, we are laying the groundwork for a future where AI not only respects but also enhances and upholds the standards of world-class journalism."

Previously, OpenAI announced similar agreements with the Financial Times, Reddit, Dotdash Meredith, the Associated Press, and Axel Springer, the parent company of Politico and Business Insider. These partnerships are integral to OpenAI's commitment to promoting ethical and sustainable practices within the AI industry, ensuring that content creators receive appropriate compensation for their contributions.

Following suit, OpenAI's competitor Google also recently finalized a deal with News Corp valued between $5 and $6 million to train its AI models, while Meta is reportedly exploring similar agreements with news publishers.

While some publishers are entering into agreements with OpenAI, others like The New York Times have taken measures to block OpenAI from scraping their website and are pursuing legal action. The New York Times asserts that OpenAI's unauthorized use of its content constitutes copyright infringement. They argue that their journalism is valuable and should not be freely utilized for AI training. Allowing OpenAI to scrape their content could result in publishers losing control over how their journalism is used and potentially misrepresented within AI models.