When journalism thinks its value is intrinsic in the commodity, content, rather than in service, education, and collaboration:
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement
@jeffjarvis Unauthorized use of copyrighted work by large companies is not a form of collaboration, it’s an attack on creators. As a freelance journalist, a noticeable part of my income is from fees paid for the subsequent use of my works and fees collected from copy shops and libraries. Why should anybody else pay these fees if the richest companies in the world can steal usage rights without a penalty?
@christianschwaegerl @jeffjarvis There's a pretty wide gulf between reselling the original content in question directly and using that content as one input of many to inform separate business processes.
It's not much different from a wall street firm deriving advice from WSJ and then selling it as a digest to their investors. As long as the end work is transformative and adds value, it's fair use.
@christianschwaegerl @jeffjarvis Nobody else is held to such a high standard for fair use, including NYT themselves. Why should the AI companies have fewer rights than the rest of us?
i.e. to use your own argument, "If [journalism] companies want to use content (like embedding tweets), they should be obliged to license it and only be allowed to use it with link included and for fact-based answers not mixed into information trash."
That sounds outrageous.
@LouisIngenthron @jeffjarvis Embedding tweets is a different kind of use, as social media content is produced specifically for free public use by creators and with the aim of maximum reach. Quoting tweets in articles is merely a continuation of what creators have intended - and comes with full attribution and a link back to where creators publish their works with conversion in mind or not. AI swallowing up work-intensive content - without attribution and linking - is the exact opposite.
@LouisIngenthron @jeffjarvis Also when signing up to X or whatever, one agrees to various types of secondary use by third parties, while NYT produces content according to their own licensing rules and specific references to copyright law and with their own subscription-centered business model. AI companies break these rules by extracting ans commodifying NYT content without attribution, linking or compensation. Nothing fair about it ethically or in terms of copyright law.
@christianschwaegerl @jeffjarvis That's what a subset of social media users use the service for, but certainly not all of them. Many people run their accounts with no desire to "maximize reach". Many use it to promote their own copyrighted works. The idea that everyone on social media is happy to give their content away to journalists sounds suspiciously like the argument that the AI companies make about the journalists' content.
@LouisIngenthron @jeffjarvis No, and there are rules for quotation. An embedded tweet will show a limited number of characters and if you want to read all, you have to go to the original source. And before posting, you have agreed to sharing, embedding etc. If ChatGPT quotes NYT with a limited number of characters, full attribution and link, nobody will object. What we witness is something totally different, an alien entity eating content with the side effect of harming the host organism.
@LouisIngenthron @jeffjarvis Not separate process as NYT content is shown to AI users in large chunks but as part of “hallucinated” answers, serving AI owner’s business models. Also, NYT content is turned into short answers that don’t link to original source, practically draining traffic from quality content producers. If AI companies want to use content, they sd be obliged to licence it and only be allowed to use it with link included and for fact-based answers not mixed into information trash.