Google, OpenAI want ‘license to steal’ from publishers with AI proposals, newspapers warn in scathing editorial
Big Tech giants like Google and ChatGPT maker OpenAI are seeking a “license to steal” as they push the White House to allow them to train AI models on copyrighted material without proper compensation, one of the nation’s largest publishers warned.
More than 60 newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital – whose properties include the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the Denver Post – published an editorial on Monday demanding that the Trump administration reject “self-serving proposals” that could destroy the news industry.
“Gutting generations of copyright protections for the benefit of AI bots would have a chilling effect not just on news organizations but also on all creative content creators, from novelists to playwrights to poets,” the editorial said.
“That iron-clad commitment to protecting the rights of owners of work they themselves created is precisely what distinguishes the United States from communist China, not the reverse.”
The plea came days after Google and Sam Altman-led OpenAI argued in letters sent to the Trump administration that copyright laws – which are essential for newspapers and other content creators to stop others from ripping off their work – must be rolled back to protect national security and allow the US to dominate the global AI race.
Big Tech’s request was also met with derision by a coalition of high-profile Hollywood actors – including known Trump critics like Mark Ruffalo and Olivia Wilde – who asked the White House to ensure copyright protections remain in place.
“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” said the letter signed by more than 400 Hollywood creatives.
“AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music, and voices used to train AI models at the core of multi-billion dollar corporate valuations,” the letter added.
The Post reached out to the White House for comment.
OpenAI and Google did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
Big Tech’s proposals were submitted in response to the Trump White House’s request for AI-related “action plans” that could be used to shape federal regulation.
OpenAI tied its argument about loosening copyright law directly to national security – asserting that the US risked losing the AI race to China if it doesn’t roll back protections.
“The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material,” the Microsoft-backed company said.
Meanwhile, Google pushed for what it called “balanced copyright rules” that would allow AI companies to train their models on protected work.
“These exceptions allow for the use of copyrighted, publicly available material for AI training without significantly impacting rightsholders and avoid often highly unpredictable, imbalanced, and lengthy negotiations with data holders during model development or scientific experimentation,” Google said in its letter.
Industry advocates, such as the News Media Alliance – a nonprofit that represents more than 2,200 publishers, including The Post – have long argued that AI chatbots trained on copyrighted articles without proper credit or payment could cause “catastrophic” damage to cash-strapped publishers.
In its own submission to the White House, the News Media Alliance noted that copyright-protected industries “contributed $2.09 trillion to the US GDP, amounting to almost 8% of the American economy.”
“AI companies rely on the long-criticized Chinese business practice of rampant copyright infringement to argue that we in America ought to abandon our historical commitment to protecting and promoting the development of intellectual property,” the group said.
“This argument wrongly suggests that American AI cannot compete without violating our laws. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”
Several Alden-owned newspapers are currently suing OpenAI and its chief backer Microsoft for copyright infringement. The New York Times has filed a similar lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker.
News Corp, the media giant that owns The Post and the Wall Street Journal, believes “courtship is preferable to courtrooms,” according to its CEO Robert Thomson.
Last year, the company struck a content licensing deal with OpenAI reportedly worth more than $250 million that included guardrails to protect its work.
“We would prefer to woo rather than sue, given that lawyers are the big winners in litigation,” Thomson said last July. “But, be warned, if we don’t woo you, we may very well sue you.”
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