NYT, Economist and AFP join AI copyright coalition

Forty major media groups, including The New York Times, The Economist and Agence France-Presse, have joined a global publishers' coalition seeking to stop AI companies from using journalism without permission.

The coalition, known as SPUR, said Tuesday that the expansion doubles its membership. It was launched in February and already included media groups such as the BBC, The Financial Times and the Associated Press.

SPUR says it aims to help media companies track their content, identify unauthorised copyright use and negotiate commercial deals with AI groups behind services such as ChatGPT and Claude.

David Buttle, SPUR's co-founder and spokesperson, said publishers currently lack a mechanism to ensure they are fairly compensated for journalism used by AI models.

AFP chairman and chief executive Fabrice Fries said journalistic value used by AI assistants must be “recognised, credited and fairly compensated”.

Other organisations joining include The Atlantic, The Observer, Radio France and publishers' associations from Brazil, Japan, Argentina and Colombia.

The New York Times sued OpenAI three years ago in a New York federal court, alleging theft of copyrighted material used to train text-generating AI models. OpenAI has since signed content licensing deals with some news publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Le Monde and The Telegraph.