OpenAI Strikes News Licensing Deal With Axel Springer for ChatGPT
OpenAI partners with Axel Springer to license content from Politico and Business Insider for AI model training and in-chatbot summaries. The multi-year agreement provides financial compensation to the publisher while including attribution and links to full articles.
OpenAI signs a multi-year agreement with Axel Springer to license news content from publications like Business Insider and Politico for generative AI model training. This deal follows a similar licensing arrangement with The Associated Press as OpenAI hedges its legal bets regarding the use of copyrighted material. In exchange for the licensing rights, Axel Springer receives ongoing financial payments of an unspecified amount from the AI startup.
Through this partnership, ChatGPT users receive summaries of selected Axel Springer articles, including stories that normally sit behind a paywall. These AI-generated snippets include proper attribution and direct links to the full articles, aiming to drive traffic back to the publisher's websites. Axel Springer plans to use OpenAI's technology to enhance its own existing AI-driven journalism ventures.
This agreement highlights the tense relationship between news publishers and generative AI vendors as the industry navigates copyright and traffic concerns. Publishers worry that AI tools cannibalize their web traffic, citing examples like Google's AI-powered search experience pushing traditional links further down the page. By securing formal licensing agreements, publishers attempt to protect their content and business models from unauthorized AI scraping and summarization.