AP’s Licensing Deal With OpenAI Includes First-Mover Safeguard

When the Associated Press (AP) became the first major publisher to license its content to a major artificial intelligence (AI) platform, the newswire reportedly ensured that it could modify the terms if another publisher struck a better deal.

This first-mover safeguard was included in the agreement announced by the AP and ChatGPT creator OpenAI July 13, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (July 28), citing unnamed sources.

That aspect of the agreement reflects the uncertainty in determining the value of the content that is used to train generative AI tools, according to the report. That value will be worked out in the marketplace, as several other publishers are also working to get paid for the use of their content by the developers of AI tools, including Microsoft and Google along with OpenAI.

News and magazine publishers have been concerned about how their content, including text and images, has been used to train AI tools.

They have also objected to the fact that generative AI tools provide information to users without requiring them to click on links to go directly to the source.

When announcing its deal with OpenAI, the AP said OpenAI will license part of the newswire’s archive, while the AP will leverage the AI company’s technology and product expertise.

“We are pleased that OpenAI recognizes that fact-based, nonpartisan news content is essential to this evolving technology, and that they respect the value of our intellectual property,” AP Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer Kristin Heitmann said at the time.

OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap added: “The AP continues to be an industry leader in the use of AI; their feedback — along with access to their high-quality, factual text archive — will help to improve the capabilities and usefulness of OpenAI’s systems.”

Days after the announcement, OpenAI said it has committed $5 million to the American Journalism Project (AJP) to support local news with the power of AI. In this new venture, the firm will provide the nonprofit and its associated organizations with $5 million in OpenAI credits and create a studio for local news outlets to try the technology.