FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – Today the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law will hold a hearing at 2:00 p.m. ET, on “Oversight of A.I.: The Future of Journalism,” which will explore the impact of the growth of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technology on publishers’ ability to provide high-quality journalism and possible oversight mechanisms to help protect and sustain quality journalism.

Witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing include Danielle Coffey, President & CEO of the News/Media Alliance (written testimony here); Roger Lynch, CEO at Condé Nast (written testimony here); Curtis LeGeyt, President and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (written testimony here); and author Jeff Jarvis (written testimony here).

Coffey’s comments before the Subcommittee will explain how Generative AI tools exploit news content to compete directly with publishers, yet need quality journalism to train their systems. Coffey will focus on the copyright infringement implications of how GAI developers train and use their models, as well as the need for legislation, including requiring transparency and responsibility from GAI developers, and passing the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), which would allow publishers to collectively negotiate for fair compensation for use of their content by the dominant tech platforms, such as Meta and Google.

Since generative AI technology took off exponentially last year, the News/Media Alliance has been leading the call for AI companies to seek proper permissions and licensing from publishers for use of their valuable content. Last fall, the Alliance published a White Paper revealing that GAI systems copy massive amounts of publishers’ original works, almost always without authorization or compensation, and publisher content is overweighted in materials used for training these systems. The White Paper and comments the Alliance submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office also explain the legal implications of such use.

In response to the hearing, News/Media Alliance President & CEO, Danielle Coffey stated, “We commend Subcommittee Chair Richard Blumenthal and Ranking Member Josh Hawley and the Senate Judiciary Committee for recognizing the urgent need to address our very serious concerns about the impacts of AI technology on providers of quality journalism, as well as the legal questions this raises. AI companies are scraping our content to compete with it – usually without any compensation to, or permission from the publishers of that content – while they reap all the benefits. This is classic freeriding that infringes publishers’ copyrights and goes far beyond fair use.”

Coffey’s testimony offers multiple suggestions for policymakers, including:

• Recognizing that unauthorized use of publishers’ expressive content for commercial GAI training and development is likely to compete with and harm publisher businesses in a manner that infringes copyright;
• Creating transparency requirements to require the recordkeeping and disclosure of unauthorized training uses of material that is protected by copyright, by technical protection measures, or governed by contractual terms prohibiting scraping; and
• Adopting legislation to remedy existing market imbalances that prevent publishers from engaging in fair negotiations for the use of their content against dominant platforms.

A new report released by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in November found that the rate of newspaper closures has accelerated, now at 2.5 closures per week (with more than 130 confirmed newspaper closings or mergers in the last year), resulting in the expansion of news deserts, in which communities lack a source of local news.

Coffey concluded, “For years the tech platforms have gotten away with using publishers’ content without appropriate compensation. This problem, having gone unaddressed, has been getting worse and now, AI doubles down on the threat the largest tech platforms pose to publishers’ viability. Countries all over the world are introducing and passing legislation requiring the tech platforms to pay news publishers. The United States cannot fall behind other countries and should pass the JCPA, which will ensure publishers can continue to provide important high-quality journalism we all depend on. We have to act now before it’s too late.”

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – Today the California Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an Informational Hearing on “The Importance of Journalism in the Digital Age.” Senator Tom Umberg is holding the Hearing to give California legislators the opportunity to learn more about the state of journalism in the state, the challenges local newsrooms face and potential solutions, and how the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA, AB 886) in particular can help support a vibrant free press.

The CJPA would require Big Tech platforms such as Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) and Google to pay news publishers a “journalism usage fee” to use the content of eligible digital journalism providers, as defined in the bill. Currently, creators of journalistic and creative content are not adequately compensated for the use of their work that takes a tremendous investment to produce.

The CJPA was introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) in March and passed out of the California State Assembly in June in a floor vote of 46-6 before it was held over to the next session. The Informational Hearing will provide legislators the opportunity to ask questions and provide input before the bill is brought up early in the next session in 2024.

“We applaud Assemblymember Wicks and Senator Umberg for their commitment to sustaining journalism and their dedication to the California Journalism & Preservation Act (CJPA),” said News/Media Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey. “By holding this informational hearing and having an open dialogue, they are showing their ardent commitment to preserving quality local journalism that supports a healthy democracy and providing their constituents with important information about their communities. Without meaningful action, news outlets will continue to disappear.”

News outlets, especially small, local ones, are shuttering at alarming rates as revenues decline and costs rise. California has lost more than 100 newspapers in the last decade.

A new report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University last month raised the level of urgency surrounding the local news crisis, finding that one-third of the newspapers in the U.S. in 2005 will be gone by 2024. Previous reports had estimated the timeline to reach that milestone would occur in 2025, which indicates that the pace of closures has accelerated. Most of the communities that lose their local newspaper do not get a replacement or have a digital source for local news for their community.

When local newspapers shutter, there is a significant detrimental effect on communities whereby civic engagement goes down, corruption goes up, and the ability to combat disinformation grows increasingly difficult.

When newsrooms are full, the public reaps the rewards. The CJPA would also promote the hiring of more journalists, requiring news publishers to invest 70 percent of the profits from the usage fee into journalism jobs.

The News/Media Alliance has been vocally advocating for legislation at the federal level since 2018. The Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), which was reintroduced by Antitrust Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Senator John N. Kennedy (R-LA) on March 31 (S. 1094), passed through Senate Judiciary Committee markup in June.

The dominant tech platforms have become de facto gatekeepers of journalism, setting rules for how news content is displayed, prioritized, and monetized. They reap the majority of the financial benefits of sharing publishers’ original content without incurring any of the costs of gathering and reporting news their users want and rely on. The CJPA and JCPA directly address these challenges and are a crucial part of the solution to preserving local journalism.

Coffey added, “With similar laws being passed around the world, we are seeing more and more support for getting this legislation passed countrywide. We must act now to protect and support publishers of high-quality journalism, who work tirelessly to keep our communities safe and informed through their reporting. We look forward to the CJPA moving to a Senate vote next year and working with policymakers in California to implement the CJPA and restore fairness and balance to the marketplace.”

For more information on the federal JCPA, visit www.JCPABill.com.

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Media contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Arlington, VA – Today News/Media Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey is attending as an invited participant in a bipartisan forum hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on “AI – Transparency, Explainability, Intellectual Property, & Copyright.”

This is the seventh AI Insight Forum that seeks to further innovation and develop bipartisan artificial intelligence legislation that takes the opportunities as well as the threats of AI technology into account. Also participating in the forum are 19 leaders from various industries, including the news media, entertainment, and tech industries.

Today’s Forum focuses on two key areas of AI policy: 1) transparency and explainability and 2) intellectual property and copyright, including addressing concerns around the use of copyrighted content in training and prompting. These are the most vital artificial intelligence concerns for the Alliance’s members.

In addition to a written statement provided in advance of the Forum, Coffey will provide oral remarks sharing the unique perspective of the news and magazine industry.

Coffey stated, “I am honored to be invited by Majority Leader Schumer, Senator Rounds, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Young to participate in this AI forum and I look forward to the dialogue. This is a critical time in the evolution of AI technology, and it is important to strike the right balance of creativity, innovation, regulation, and respect for existing rights. We must ensure that publishers of high-quality journalism whose content is being used to train AI systems have a seat at the table.”

The Alliance – whose members comprise over 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the U.S. and globally – has been leading the call since the advent of generative AI chatbots earlier this year for AI companies and developers to properly compensate publishers of quality journalism for use of their valuable content to train generative AI systems (GAI).

In April, the Alliance released AI Principles for the news and magazine media industry, which highlight the overarching principles that must guide the development and use of GAI systems as well as the policies and regulations governing them. Among other things, the AI Principles outline the need for GAI developers to obtain explicit permission for use of publishers’ intellectual property, and for publishers to be able to negotiate for fair compensation for use of their IP by these developers. In addition, the Alliance helped organize the publication of Global AI Principles in September, endorsed by 31 organizations representing thousands of creative professionals around the world, including news, entertainment, magazine, and book publishing companies and the academic publishing sector.

On October 31, the Alliance released a White Paper entitled, “How the Pervasive Copying of Expressive Works to Train and Fuel Generative Artificial Intelligence Systems Is Copyright Infringement And Not a Fair Use,” which shows that GAI systems have been developed by copying massive amounts of the expressive material published by the Alliance’s members, almost always without authorization or compensation, to create new products and services that frequently compete with Alliance member publishers.

The Alliance also recently submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright Office on the use of publisher content to power generative artificial intelligence technologies (GAI). The comments, White Paper and accompanying technical analysis together document the pervasive, unauthorized use of publisher content by GAI developers, the impact this may have on the sustainability and availability of high-quality original content, and the legal implications of such use.

The Copyright Office comments and the White Paper offer multiple recommendations to policymakers, including recognizing that unauthorized use of publishers’ expressive content for commercial GAI training and development is likely to compete with and harm publisher businesses in a manner that infringes copyright; creating transparency requirements to require disclosure of the use of copyright protected content in training; encouraging and facilitating effective licensing solutions; supporting international cooperation and harmonization on GAI regulations; and adopting legislation to remedy existing market imbalances that prevent publishers from engaging in fair negotiations for the use of their content against dominant platforms.

Coffey added, “For years the Big Tech platforms have gotten away with using our publishers’ content to add billions to their bottom lines, all while publishers have suffered. Now, the platforms and AI companies are scraping publisher content and using it to train their generative AI systems – again without compensating publishers. This goes far beyond fair use. Journalists, writers, publishers, and other creators make the investments and take the risks while generative AI developers reap the rewards of traffic, data, brand creation, subscription fees, and advertising dollars. This is freeriding, and it is antithetical to established copyright law and the public interest that it serves.”

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News/Media Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey Participates in AI Insight Forum Hosted by Senator Chuck Schumer appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Arlington, VA – The News/Media Alliance applauds the Canadian government for today’s deal with Google for its payment for the use of valuable news content on its Search platform. The amount negotiated is reported to be $100 million per year, down from the $172 million called for by the Canadian government.

The Canadian government passed legislation (C-18, the Online News Act) earlier this year that requires Big Tech platforms such as Google and Meta to pay news publishers for the use of their content. The Online News Act is due to take effect in December.

“This is a very big win for Canadian news publishers and shows that Google will commit to paying fair market value for quality journalism,” stated News/Media Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey. “This proves, yet again, that legislation is the only path to sustained right to payment for the fair market value of our quality content. The U.S. must stand up for our vibrant journalism industry and not fall behind other countries. Big Tech cannot continue to harm local news. Congress must protect our democracy and our constitutional right to a free press by implementing legislation that will help sustain quality journalism in America.”

Canada is the latest in a string of countries around the world that have recognized the need to protect quality journalism and passed legislation requiring the tech platforms to pay news publishers for use of their content, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

The Canada bill and today’s deal build momentum for the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA – AB 886, introduced earlier this year by California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland)) – the goal of which will be discussed at an informational hearing next week – and the federal Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) (S.1094, reintroduced in March by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John N. Kennedy (R-LA)) in the U.S. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted favorably in June for the JCPA, which would allow digital journalism providers to collectively negotiate with Google and Facebook for fair compensation for use of their valuable content.

The JCPA has broad support, not only in Congress in both the House and the Senate, but also from over 300 consumer interest groups, unions, conservatives, advocacy groups and third-party organizations that have sent letters of support for the JCPA to the bill sponsors.

The tech platforms are the dominant distributors of news content, reaping tremendous financial benefit without compensation to those who create the content. They also capture the majority of U.S. digital ad revenue, leaving local publishers with little to reinvest in the production of high-quality journalism.

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The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Arlington, VA – Yesterday, the News/Media Alliance published a White Paper and a technical analysis and submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright Office on the use of publisher content to power generative artificial intelligence technologies (GAI). Together, the three publications document the pervasive, unauthorized use of publisher content by GAI developers, the impact this may have on the sustainability and availability of high-quality original content, and the legal implications of such use. GAI systems have been developed by copying massive amounts of the expressive material published by the Alliance’s members, almost always without authorization or compensation, to create new products and services that frequently compete with Alliance member publishers.

The Alliance recognizes the exciting potential of GAI models and applications to improve aspects of our lives and supports the principled development of these systems. But this development must not come at the expense of publishers and journalists who invest considerable time and resources producing material that keeps our communities informed, safe, and entertained, and holds our government officials and other decision makers in check. The Alliance and its members would welcome working with GAI developers to help build and grow these technologies in a sustainable and responsible manner.

While the Copyright Office submission and White Paper discuss the wider publisher landscape in the face of the GAI revolution, including relevant principles of copyright law, the accompanying technical analysis documents the extent to which GAI developers rely on high-quality journalistic content to power their models. In particular, the results show:

• GAI developers have copied and used news, magazine and digital media content to train large language models (LLMs).
• Popular curated datasets underlying LLMs significantly overweight publisher content by a factor ranging from over 5 to almost 100 as compared to the generic collection of content that the well-known entity Common Crawl has scraped from the web.
• Other studies show that news and digital media ranks third among all categories of sources in Google’s C4 training set, which was used to develop Google’s GAI-powered products like Bard. Half of the top ten sites represented in the data set are news outlets.
• The LLMs also copy and use publisher content in their outputs. The LLMs can reproduce the content on which they were trained, demonstrating that the models retain and can memorize the expressive content of the training works.

Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey stated, “The research and analysis we’ve conducted shows that AI companies and developers are not only engaging in unauthorized copying of our members’ content to train their products, but they are using it pervasively and to a greater extent than other sources. This shows they recognize our unique value, and yet most of these developers are not obtaining proper permissions through licensing agreements or compensating publishers for the use of this content. This diminishment of high-quality, human created content harms not only publishers but the sustainability of AI models themselves and the availability of reliable, trustworthy information.”

The Copyright Office comments and the White Paper offer multiple recommendations to policymakers, including recognizing that unauthorized use of publishers’ expressive content for commercial GAI training and development is likely to compete with and harm publisher businesses in a manner that infringes copyright; creating transparency requirements to require disclosure of the use of copyright protected content in training; encouraging and facilitating effective licensing solutions; supporting international cooperation and harmonization on GAI regulations; and adopting legislation to remedy existing market imbalances that prevent publishers from engaging in fair negotiations for the use of their content against dominant platforms.

Coffey continued, “Generative AI systems should be held responsible and accountable, just like any other business. This White Paper demonstrates that these systems rely on journalistic and creative content, which have the benefit of investment in quality on the front end, as well as publishers who are required by law to take responsibility for the content they share with the public. Continued unauthorized use will harm existing markets that acknowledge the value of archived and real-time quality content, and over time the GAI models themselves will deteriorate. You get out what you put in. It is critical that our copyright protections are properly enforced and that high standards of quality and accountability are the foundation of these and other new technologies.”

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News/Media Alliance Study Finds Pervasive Unauthorized Use of Publisher Content to Power Generative AI Technologies appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Big tech company Meta, which owns Facebook, has over the years changed course in its relationship with news more times than we can count, pushing news publishers away one moment and pulling them back the next to serve their interests, with little regard for the detrimental impact to publishers, journalism, and readers. This timeline illustrates how Meta has literally flipped from one side to the complete opposite, sometimes in the span of days, and how they have stated their intent to prioritize news, only to cast it off later as old news.

2015

Facebook helps drive traffic to news with Instant Articles, but then takes it away when legislation requiring them to pay publishers starts moving through Congress.

LIKE: In May 2015, Facebook began testing “instant articles” on its platform by directly hosting articles rather than linking off to the news publisher’s site, paying publishers ad revenue. Read more.

DISLIKE: In October 2022 it was announced that Facebook would be ending support of instant articles, scaling back on investments for news. Read more.

2016

Facebook shows off news Curation team, then cuts it when they come under fire for the practice.

DISLIKE: In May 2016, it was revealed that Facebook was using staff to manage the news that appeared in the “trending” section, sifting through terms that the algorithm produced giving them a value based on whether they were reported by major news outlets. Read more.

LIKE: In August 2016, Facebook cut the “curation team” after criticism of bias and took steps to ensure the section would show popular content using algorithms. Read more.

2017

Facebook contracted with news publishers to create live video for them, then abandoned it.

LIKE: In 2016, Facebook signed contracts with nearly 140 media companies and celebrities to pay them to create live video for its Facebook Live service. Read more.

DISLIKE: Less than a year later, in January 2017, it was reported that Facebook was de-emphasizing live video, instead moving toward long-form video content. Read more.

2018

Facebook deprioritizes news in its “Feed,” then says trusted news content will be prioritized.

DISLIKE: In January 2018, Facebook announced that a user’s News Feed would feature more content from family and friends at the top, rather than news content, to maximize content with “meaningful interaction.” Read more.

LIKE: Facebook announces another change just one week later, saying after research showed 56% of users said they wanted to see more local news on Facebook, that news shown on a user’s Feed would be prioritized based on if it is considered high-quality, “trusted news content.”

2019

Facebook launched a special News tab in the U.S. to feature news publisher content, then took it away when legislation around the world requiring tech platforms to pay for news gained momentum.

LIKE: In October 2019, Facebook decides once again to befriend news publishers, launching a dedicated News tab – paying publishers to feature their content – to encourage users to consume news on its platform. Read more.

DISLIKE: In July 2022, Facebook announced it would not renew existing agreements with news publishers to feature their content on Facebook News, signaling that it intended to turn away from news yet again. Read more.

2021

In response to Australia’s intent to pass a law requiring Big Tech to pay news publishers, Meta removed news from Facebook. When the move backfired with the public, it restored news and began negotiations with publishers under the new law.

DISLIKE: On February 17, 2021, Meta removed news from Facebook in Australia in response to the country’s News Media Bargaining Code, which would require them to pay small, local publishers for use of their content. Read more.

LIKE: Again, just one week later, following public backlash for blocking important news and information from the platform, Meta reported that it had reached a deal with the Australian government and would restore news to Facebook in the country, as well as negotiate with publishers under the Code. Read more.

2022

Meta says it will remove news from Facebook in the U.S. if the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA) becomes law.

DISLIKE: On December 5, 2022, Meta threatens to repeat its unsuccessful behavior from Australia, saying it would consider removing news in the U.S. if the JCPA (which at the time was included in the defense package set to pass at the end of the year), became law. The JCPA ultimately was not included in the defense bill. Read more.

2023

Meta threatens to remove news from Facebook in California if the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), a bill that would require dominant tech platforms to fairly compensate news publishers for use of their content, passes.

DISLIKE: On May 31, 2023, as the CJPA was headed to a Senate vote and was poised to become law, Meta, up to its usual tricks, threatened to pull news from Facebook if the bill passed, using its dominance to manipulate public policy to the detriment of journalism and Americans. Read more.

Now, Meta is removing news from Facebook in Canada in retaliation against the Online News Act (C-18), which would require them to negotiate with news publishers for payment for use of their valuable journalism.

We’ve seen this before. Facebook’s push and pull is harmful to publishers. Meta should not be allowed to get away with using our content for free.

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Arlington, VA – Today 26 organizations representing thousands of creative professionals around the world, including news, entertainment, magazine, and book publishing companies and the academic publishing sector, released Global Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI). A first of their kind, these pioneering Global Principles provide guidance for the development, deployment, and regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and applications to ensure business opportunities and innovation can thrive within an ethical and accountable framework. The Global Principles for AI are aimed at ensuring publishers’ continued ability to create and disseminate quality content, while facilitating innovation and the responsible development of trustworthy AI systems.

Addressing critical dimensions relating to intellectual property, transparency, accountability, quality and integrity, fairness, safety, design, and sustainable development, the Global Principles for AI mark an unprecedented collaboration that safeguards the interests of content creators, publishers, and consumers alike.

In the Principles, the organizations call for the responsible development and deployment of AI systems and applications, stating that these new tools must only be developed in accordance with established principles and laws that protect publishers’ intellectual property, brands, consumer relationships, and investments. The Principles state explicitly that AI systems’ “indiscriminate misappropriation of our intellectual property is unethical, harmful, and an infringement of our protected rights.”

News/Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey stated, “These Global AI Principles demonstrate the widespread agreement of publishers around the world that their intellectual property, which is the product of significant investments they have made in providing quality journalistic and creative content, should be recognized and respected. AI systems are only as good as the content they use to train them, and therefore developers of generative AI technology must recognize and compensate publishers accordingly for the tremendous value their content contributes to the development of these systems.”

Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint stated, “For decades, our member companies have pursued opportunities to bring trusted news and entertainment to new platforms and new distribution channels enabled by the internet. We know from experience that principles like these are necessary to make certain those opportunities continue to proliferate and serve as a guidepost for businesses and policymakers who are wrestling with the ethical and legal questions surrounding AI.”

Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers Council stated, “The Global Principles for AI pave the way for a powerful convergence of innovation and ethical development of AI. We invite regulators to establish legal frameworks which boost innovation and create new business opportunities, while ensuring that AI develops in a way that is responsible and sustainable for the publishing and journalism sectors in full respect of their intellectual property rights.”

Among other things, the Global AI Principles stipulate that developers, operators, and deployers of AI systems should:

• Respect intellectual property rights protecting the organizations’ investments in original content.
• Leverage efficient licensing models that can facilitate innovation through training of trustworthy and high-quality AI systems.
• Provide granular transparency to allow publishers to enforce their rights where their content is included in training datasets.
• Clearly attribute content to the original publishers of the content.
• Recognise publishers’ invaluable role in generating high-quality content for training, and also for surfacing and synthesizing.
• Comply with competition laws and principles and ensure that AI models are not used for anti-competitive purposes.
• Promote trusted and reliable sources of information and ensure that AI generated content is accurate, correct and complete.
• Not misrepresent original works.
• Respect the privacy of users that interact with them and fully disclose the use of their personal data in AI system design, training, and use.
• Align with human values and operate in accordance with global laws.

The full Global AI Principles, which can be found online, elaborate on each of the points above in greater detail.

Organizations signing onto the Global AI Principles include:

• AMI – Colombian News Media Association
• Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas (Adepa)
• Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers
• Associação Nacional de Jornais (Brazilian Newspaper Association) (ANJ)
• Czech Publishers’ Association
• Danish Media Association
• Digital Content Next
• European Magazine Media Association
• European Newspaper Publishers’ Association
• European Publishers Council
• FIPP
• Grupo de Diarios América
• Inter American Press Association
• Korean Association of Newspapers
• Magyar Lapkiadók Egyesülete (Hungarian Publishers’ Association)
• NDP Nieuwsmedia
• News/Media Alliance
• News Media Association
• News Media Canada
• News Media Europe
• News Media Finland
• News Publishers’ Association
• Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association)
• Professional Publishers Association
• STM
• World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)

The Global AI Principles can be found on the News/Media Alliance website here.

The Principles are open to future signatories.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post Global Publishing, Journalism Organizations Unite to Release Comprehensive Global Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI) appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Credit: blackdovfx / iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

Download as a PDF

Introduction

AI developers and regulators have a unique opportunity to establish an ethical AI framework to boost innovation and create new business opportunities, while ensuring that AI develops in a way that is responsible and sustainable. To achieve this, it is essential that AI systems are trained on content and data which is accessed lawfully, including by appropriate prior authorisations obtained for the use of copyright protected works and other subject matter, and that the content and sources used to train the systems are clearly identified. This document sets out principles that the undersigned publisher organisations believe should govern the development, deployment, and regulation of Artificial Intelligence systems and applications. These principles cover issues related to intellectual property, transparency, accountability, quality and integrity, fairness, safety, design, and sustainable development.

The proliferation of AI Systems, especially Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), present a sea change in how we interact with and deploy technology and creative content. While AI technologies will provide substantial benefits to the public, content creators, businesses, and society at large, they also pose risks for the sustainability of the creative industries, the public’s trust in knowledge, journalism, and science, and the health of our democracies.

We, the undersigned organisations, fully embrace the opportunities AI will bring to our sector and call for the responsible development and deployment of AI systems and applications. We strongly believe that these new tools will facilitate innovative breakthroughs when developed in accordance with established principles and laws that protect publishers’ intellectual property (IP), valuable brands, trusted consumer relationships, and investments. The indiscriminate appropriation of our intellectual property by AI systems is unethical, harmful, and an infringement of our protected rights.

Our organisations represent thousands of creative professionals around the world, including news, magazine, and book publishers and the academic publishing industry such as learned societies and university presses. Our members invest considerable time and resources creating high-quality content that keeps our communities informed, entertained, and engaged. These principles – applying to the use of our content to train and deploy AI systems, as they are understood and used today – are aimed at ensuring our continued ability to innovate, create and disseminate such content, while facilitating the responsible development of trustworthy AI systems.

Intellectual Property

1) Developers, operators, and deployers of AI systems must respect intellectual property rights, which protect the rights holders’ investments in original content. These rights include all applicable copyright, ancillary rights, and other legal protections, as well as contractual restrictions or limitations imposed by rightsholders on the access to and use of their content. Therefore, developers, operators, and deployers of AI systems—as well as legislators, regulators, and other parties involved in drafting laws and policies regulating AI—must respect the value of creators’ and owners’ proprietary content in order to protect the livelihoods of creators and rightsholders.

2) Publishers are entitled to negotiate for and receive adequate remuneration for use of their IP. AI system developers, operators, and deployers should not be crawling, ingesting, or using our proprietary creative content without express authorisation. Use of intellectual property by AI systems for training, surfacing, or synthesising is usually expressly prohibited in online terms and conditions of the rightsholders, and not covered by pre-existing licensing agreements. Where developers have been permitted to crawl content for one purpose (for example, indexing for search), they must seek express authorisation for use of the IP for other purposes, such as inclusion within LLMs. These agreements should also account for harms that AI systems may cause, or have already caused, to creators, owners, and the public.

3) Copyright and ancillary rights protect content creators and owners from the unlicensed use of their content. Like all other uses of protected works, use of protected works in AI systems is subject to compliance with the relevant laws concerning copyrights, ancillary rights, and permissions within protocols. To ensure that access to content for use in AI systems is lawful, including through appropriate licenses and permissions obtained from relevant rightsholders, it is essential that rightsholders are able effectively to enforce their rights, and where applicable, require attribution and remuneration.

4) Existing markets for licensing creators’ and rightsholders’ content should be recognised. Valuing publishers’ legitimate IP interests need not impede AI innovation because frameworks already exist to permit use in return for payment, including through licensing. We encourage efficient licensing models that can facilitate training of trustworthy and high-quality AI systems

Transparency

5) AI systems should provide granular transparency to creators, rightsholders, and users. It is essential that strong regulations are put in place to require developers of AI systems to keep detailed records of publisher works and associated metadata, alongside the legal basis on which they were accessed, and to make this information available to the extent necessary for publishers to enforce their rights where their content is included in training datasets. The obligation to keep accurate records should go back to the start of the AI development to provide a full chain of use regardless of the jurisdiction in which the training or testing may have taken place. Failure to keep detailed records should give rise to a presumption of use of the data in question. When datasets or applications developed by non-profit, research, or educational third parties are used to power commercial AI systems, this must be clearly disclosed so that publishers can enforce their rights. Where developers use AI tools as a component into the process of generating knowledge from knowledge, there should be transparency on the application of these tools, including appropriate and clear accountability and provenance mechanisms, as well as clear attribution where appropriate in accordance with the terms and conditions of the publishers of the original content. Without limiting and subject to paragraphs 6 and 9, AI developers should work with publishers to develop mutually acceptable attribution and navigation standards and formats. Users should also be provided with comprehensible information about how such systems operate to make judgments about system and output quality and trustworthiness.

Accountability

6) Providers and deployers of AI systems should cooperate to ensure accountability for system outputs. AI systems pose risks for competition and public trust in the quality and accuracy of informational and scientific content. This can be compounded by AI systems generating content that improperly attributes false information to publishers. Deployers of AI systems providing informational or scientific content should provide all essential and relevant information to ensure accountability and should not be shielded from liability for their outputs, including through limited liability regimes and safe harbours.

Quality and Integrity

7) Ensuring quality and integrity is fundamental to establishing trust in the application of AI tools and services. These values should be at the heart of the AI lifecycle, from the design and building of algorithms, to inputs used to train AI tools and services, to those used in the  practical application of AI. A fundamental principle of computing is that a process can only be as good or unbiased as the input used to teach the system (rubbish-in-rubbish-out). AI developers and deployers should recognise that publishers are an invaluable part of their supply chain, generating high-quality content for training, and also for surfacing and synthesising. Use of high-quality content upstream will contribute to high-quality outputs for downstream users.

Fairness

8) AI systems should not create, or risk creating, unfair market or competition outcomes. AI systems should be designed, trained, deployed, and used in a way that is compliant with the law, including competition laws and principles. Developers and deployers should also be required to ensure that AI models are not used for anti-competitive purposes. The deployment of AI systems by very large online platforms must not be used to entrench their market power, facilitate abuses of dominance, or exclude rivals from the marketplace. Platforms must adhere to the concept of non-discrimination when it comes to publishers exercising their right to choose how their content is used.

Safety

9) AI systems should be trustworthy. AI systems and models should be designed to promote trusted and reliable sources of information produced according to the same professional standards that apply to publishers and media companies. AI developers and deployers must use best efforts to ensure that AI generated content is accurate, correct and complete. Importantly, AI systems must ensure that original works are not misrepresented. This is necessary to preserve the value and integrity of original works, and to maintain public trust.

10) AI systems should be safe and address privacy risks. AI systems and models in particular should be designed to respect the privacy of users who interact with them. Collection and use of personal data in AI system design, training, and use should be lawful with full disclosure to users in an easily understandable manner. Systems should not reinforce biases or facilitate discrimination.

By Design

11) These principles should be incorporated by design into all AI systems, including general purpose AI systems, foundation models, and GAI systems. They should be significant elements of the design, and not considered as an afterthought or a minor concern to be addressed when convenient or when a third party brings a claim.

Sustainable Development

12) The multi-disciplinary nature of AI systems ideally positions them to address areas of global concern. AI systems bear the promise to benefit all humans, including future generations, but only to the extent they are aligned to human values and operate in accordance with global laws. Long-term funding and other incentives for suppliers of high-quality input data can help to align systems with societal aims and extract the most important, up-to-date, and actionable knowledge.

Endorsing Organizations*

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*Additional organizations to endorse the Principles following publication include: AMI – Asociación de Medios de Información (Spanish News Media Association); APImprensa, the Portuguese Press Editors and Publishers Association; Association of Online Publishers (AOP) (UK); ARI, Asociación de Revistas (Spanish Magazine Media Association); TU – Swedish Media Publishers Association

Full list of organizations signing onto the Global AI Principles:

• AMI – Colombian News Media Association
• AMI – Asociación de Medios de Información (Spanish News Media Association)
• APImprensa, the Portuguese Press Editors and Publishers Association
• Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas (Adepa)
• Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers
• Association of Online Publishers (AOP) (UK)
• Associação Nacional de Jornais (Brazilian Newspaper Association) (ANJ)
• Czech Publishers’ Association
• Danish Media Association
• Digital Content Next
• European Magazine Media Association
• European Newspaper Publishers’ Association
• European Publishers Council
• FIPP
• Grupo de Diarios América
• Inter American Press Association
• Korean Association of Newspapers
• Magyar Lapkiadók Egyesülete (Hungarian Publishers’ Association)
• NDP Nieuwsmedia
• News/Media Alliance
• News Media Association
• News Media Canada
• News Media Europe
• News Media Finland
• News Publishers’ Association
• Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association)
• Professional Publishers Association
• ARI, Asociación de Revistas (Spanish Magazine Media Association)
• STM
• TU – Swedish Media Publishers Association
• World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA)

Related resources:

Joint G7 letter on development of global AI principles (News/Media Alliance, European Publishers Council, and Digital Content Next)

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