US tech large Amazon is paying the New York Occasions between $20 to $25 million a yr to make use of the paper’s content material to coach its AI fashions, the Wall Avenue Journal has reported, citing folks conversant in the matter.
The multi-year settlement, signed in Might, offers Amazon entry to the American newspaper’s core information protection, in addition to its cooking and sports activities platforms. Whereas the partnership was publicly introduced on the time, the monetary phrases weren’t disclosed.
Beneath the deal, Amazon can use the licensed materials to enhance its AI fashions and incorporate summaries and excerpts from NYT content material into services and products resembling its Alexa digital assistant. The settlement marks a primary for each events: it’s the NYT’s first licensing deal centered particularly on AI, and Amazon’s first such settlement with a information writer.
AI firms have exhausted all of the simply accessible knowledge on the earth and at the moment are making an attempt to beat difficulties in bettering their large-language fashions, Reuters famous, whereas reporting on the deal in Might.
Whereas the sum represents solely about 1% of the NYT’s annual income, the deal alerts the emergence of a brand new revenue stream for publishers, who can now monetize their journalistic content material immediately by way of AI coaching relatively than relying solely on advertisements or subscriptions.
The settlement additionally comes amid rising authorized tensions between publishers and AI builders. In December 2023, the NYT filed a high-profile lawsuit towards OpenAI and its main investor Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement. The swimsuit alleged that each firms used the newspaper’s articles with out permission to coach AI fashions resembling ChatGPT, and that AI-generated summaries may bypass paywalls and cut back internet visitors.
OpenAI and Microsoft have denied the allegations, arguing their use of content material qualifies as truthful use and that their fashions don’t copy articles verbatim however as a substitute be taught patterns to generate new textual content.
Different publishers have pursued related partnerships. In 2024, Reuters licensed its articles to Meta Platforms. The monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.
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