OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, has started to talk to publishers about striking deals to license their articles as the start-up looks for content to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. Reports say that OpenAI is offering between $1 million and $5 million for these licenses, an indication of how much AI companies plan to pay for licensed material.
“We are in the middle of many negotiations and discussions with many publishers. They are active. They are very positive. They’re progressing well,” Tom Rubin, OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content, told Bloomberg News.
OpenAI recently clinched a multi-year licensing deal with Axel Springer for millions of dollars. In July last year, OpenAI announced an agreement with the Associated Press for an undisclosed amount. These deals, key to OpenAI’s future, balance the need for updated, accurate data to build its models with growing scrutiny about where that data is sourced.
These negotiations come after the New York Times announced that it was suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, arguing that the AI company had used its articles to train LLMs without permission.
In 2023, AI developers were criticised for using image and text data to train their models without considering whether or not it was copyrighted. OpenAI’s licensing talks with these brands are in a bid to avoid lawsuits in the future.
Apple is also looking to collaborate with media companies to use content for AI training and is offering at least $50 million over a multiyear period for data.
