40 Major Media Groups Join Coalition to Protect Journalism from AI Copyright Violations -

Forty major media organisations, including The New York Times, The Economist and Agence France-Presse (AFP), have joined a global coalition seeking to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) companies from using journalistic content without permission, the group announced on Tuesday.

The coalition, known as Standards for Publisher Usage Rights (SPUR), was launched in February and initially included media organisations such as the BBC, The Financial Times and the Associated Press (AP). The latest expansion has doubled its membership, strengthening efforts to protect publishers’ intellectual property and secure fair compensation for their work.

SPUR aims to help media companies track the use of their content, identify copyright violations and negotiate commercial agreements with AI developers behind services such as ChatGPT and Claude.

“There is rapidly growing momentum behind our effort to build a fairer, more sustainable information economy,” said David Buttle, the coalition’s co-founder and spokesperson. He added that high-quality journalism plays a crucial role in training AI models, but publishers currently lack effective mechanisms to ensure they are fairly compensated.

AFP Chairman and Chief Executive Fabrice Fries said millions of people rely on AI assistants every day for information gathered and verified by news agency journalists.

He stressed that the value of original journalism must be recognised, credited and fairly compensated. Fries also said tracking the use of published content was not merely a matter of intellectual property rights but was essential to maintaining public trust.

The coalition’s growing membership reflects increasing concerns among publishers over the use of copyrighted material by AI companies and the need for clearer rules governing content access, attribution and compensation. – ERMD

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