Title: Navigating AI's Impact on the News Industry: Implications for Content Creators
As Raptive's Chief Innovation Officer, Marc McCollum is driving the creation of new revenue streams, opening up fresh monetization opportunities for content creators. In late 2024, the New York Times sent a cease-and-desist notice to Perplexity, an AI search engine startup, alleging unauthorized use of its content. NewsCorp followed suit, suing Perplexity for what they termed "massive freeriding." Earlier this year, the New York Times also took legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of utilizing its articles to train ChatGPT without permission.
These escalating disputes over AI and copyright represent a new battleground in a long-standing struggle between content creators and technology companies. It's not just about copyright infringement; it's about who controls the internet's content and who reaps the benefits. The resolution of these disputes will determine the future of the internet and the fate of every journalist and content creator.
Generative AI search engines like Google's AI Overviews mine content directly from websites for search results, frequently eliminating the need for users to visit the original sources. This could have disastrous consequences for content creators, potentially decreasing web traffic and revenue potential. An overwhelming 92% of full-time creators surveyed by a creator media company believe AI-powered search engines will negatively impact their business. These small businesses have built the internet into the vibrant, essential resource we all rely on and cherish. However, generative AI poses a threat to this.
A New Turn in a Long-lasting Saga
Generative AI search represents a power shift in the currently imbalanced industry landscape. Google has long defended its walled garden model, with algorithms, media performance, and marketing tactics locked behind a black box. With AI, Google is transforming its walled garden into a walled fortress, further cementing its dominance.
For all stakeholders, generative AI search signifies a fresh swing in the already uneven balance of power. Tensions between content creators and platform distributors date back decades. These conflicts will decide the livelihoods of every publisher and content producer, from major news outlets to independent creators.
Unraveling the Underlying Narrative: Unpacking the Disputes
These tensions can be observed in various other significant storylines, which collectively reveal the broader picture:
• Google's Antitrust Challenges:The DOJ has successfully sued Google for anticompetitive practices in its search business, with another case against Google's ad tech business underway.
• Signal Deprecation:Widely used browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, have phased out key advertising signals, disrupting the online advertising landscape. Google's Privacy Sandbox, which faced vocal opposition from publishers and received critical reviews from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), eventually saw Google postponing its plans to deprecate cookies for the time being.
• Subscription Revenue Restrictions:Legal battles between Epic Games, Apple, and Google over revenue-sharing models highlight the restrictive practices of tech giants' app stores.
• Meta's Compensation Controversies:Meta faces legal challenges in Australia and Canada over legislations requiring tech platforms to pay publishers for content.
• Google Books and Copyright:The current AI search-related debates echo earlier legal battles, such as the 2015 Author's Guild v. Google decision, which ruled that Google's practice of scanning and displaying small excerpts of copyrighted books was fair use. However, many content creators argued that this practice devalued their work and set an unsettling precedent for how tech companies can use others' intellectual property without proper compensation or control.
• Algorithm Changes:Facebook's algorithm shifts have negatively impacted publishers' organic reach, putting a strain on their business models.
These disputes demonstrate the power struggle between content creators and dominant platforms, with AI intensifying long-standing tensions.
Paving the Way Forward
A balanced framework is needed to ensure fair compensation and control for publishers. This includes:
• Empowering Publishers with Control:Protecting intellectual property rights and fostering a diverse and vibrant digital ecosystem is essential. Publishers must have the power to regulate how their content is utilized. They should not be compelled to deny Google permission to train AI Overviews on their content, even if it means sacrificing visibility in Google search results.
• Compensation as a Right:A fair compensation model recognizing the contribution of publishers' content to tech platforms' value generation is necessary. A proportional compensation approach ensuring equitable remuneration based on content usage and impact would establish fair.
• Fair Competition:Fostering a competitive environment that promotes the growth of publishers of all sizes, from prominent media outlets to individual content creators, is vital. This includes addressing monopolistic practices and advancing the development of new technologies such as generative AI in ways that do not undermine the foundation of the publishing industry.
This is a critical struggle for the soul of the internet, challenging us to reimagine how content creators are compensated and protected in a world driven by AI. This is an essential moment that demands legal resolutions and a broader reconsideration of the principles underpinning digital content creation, distribution, and monetization.
The public is aware of and unhappy about the open internet's predicament. A survey by the News Media Alliance found strong public support for protecting media and content creators from AI systems that unfairly utilize their content.
The outcomes of these conflicts will dictate the future of digital content, determining the terms of survival for creators of all sizes, from prominent journalism outlets to individual creators turning a passion into a business. Each of them deserves equal compensation, control, and fair competition.
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In the ongoing debate about AI and copyright, Marc McCollum, as Raptive's Chief Innovation Officer, continues to advocate for new revenue streams for content creators. Despite the challenges posed by generative AI search engines like Google's, Marc McCollum remains a significant figure in the endeavor to ensure fair compensation for publishers and content creators.
