Empirics prove one license covers multiple publishers. AI can afford.

OpenAI’s chatbots scored a big new data source following the company’s deal with News Corp. in May. With the stroke of a pen, ChatGPT and the company’s other services added the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, MarketWatch, Barron’s, and other publications to its database. The deal, which did not include Fox News content, was one of the latest in a growing series of big data sharing agreements OpenAI has signed in an effort to educate its systems and expand the technology’s expertise. The company recently signed a similar deal with Reddit to incorporate its content into ChatGPT and new products. It also this month signed deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media. The deals come after some media outlets, including The New York Times Company, have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for using their publications’ copyrighted stories without permission in training chatbots. Filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the suit alleges millions of NYTimes articles were used to train chatbots, which have begun to compete with the news outlet as information sources. A collective of well-known authors has also sued the company, alleging “systematic theft on a mass scale.” Inputting data is only half the battle, of course. OpenAI will have to figure out how to deal with biases in the information it incorporates and how to weed out information that’s sarcastic or pure parody. (Earlier this month, Google showed it still has a long way to go on this front, with the company’s AI Search sharing a farcical Reddit post as fact when it suggested “mix[ing] about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue into the sauce” to keep the cheese from sliding off of your pizza slice.) So, who all has partnered with OpenAI, giving the company access to their content libraries? Here’s a comprehensive look. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Last July, the AP and OpenAI announced a deal letting the AI giant license AP’s archive of news stories going back through 1985. AP, in the meantime, was given the opportunity to leverage OpenAI’s tech. THE ATLANTIC In May, after publishing an op-ed arguing that media companies were making a mistake by partnering with AI firms, the Atlantic announced its own such deal. According to the announcement, the publication will also leverage OpenAI’s technology: “The Atlantic is currently developing an experimental microsite, called Atlantic Labs, to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers—and will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work.” AXEL SPRINGER The German publisher was the first major media outlet to partner with OpenAI and open its archives to the chatbot. Axel Springer controls a huge assortment of outlets, including Politico, Business Insider, and German outlets Bild and Welt. DOTDASH MEREDITH Dotdash Meredith is one of the largest digital publishers in the U.S., so its licensing deal, signed in May, gave OpenAI access to more than 40 brands, including People, Travel & Leisure, Entertainment Weekly, Allrecipes, Real Simple, Food & Wine, Parents, Investopedia, Better Homes & Garden, and InStyle. The deal came after the company’s parent firm IAC had pushed to create a coalition uniting big publishers as they strove to protect copyrighted materials from AI firms. That effort ultimately fell apart.