Microsoft's AI marketplace will compensate publishers for content use
What's the story
Microsoft is reportedly working on a new platform called the Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM). The system, which will be integrated with Microsoft's Copilot assistant, will pay publishers whenever their content is used by AI products. According to Axios, the tech giant has already started discussions with select US publishers about a pilot program for this initiative.
Pilot launch
PCM to onboard more partners over time
The PCM will initially be launched with a limited number of partners, but Microsoft plans to expand the program over time. The company pitched the idea to publishing executives at an exclusive Partner Summit in Monaco last week. They were reportedly approached with the proposition: "You deserve to be paid on the quality of your IP." However, no specific date for this pilot launch has been announced yet.
Copyright issues
Generative AI copyright disputes
The rise of generative AI has sparked a major copyright debate between publishers and AI labs. The most high-profile case is the December 2023 lawsuit by The New York Times against Microsoft and OpenAI, accusing them of using millions of its articles without permission to train their models. Other cases include a class-action lawsuit by The Authors Guild against OpenAI, with famous authors like George R.R. Martin and John Grisham claiming their books were illegally used as training data.
Regulatory push
Media giants demand government intervention
In light of these issues, media giants have called for US government intervention to regulate the industry. A coalition of over 200 news organizations has urged federal agencies to establish rules requiring AI companies to obtain consent and pay for content. They are also concerned about the potential harm from AI "hallucinations," where models generate false information and attribute it incorrectly to their publications.
Marketplace model
Microsoft's lead in the AI marketplace race
Notably, Microsoft is the first major company to create a dedicated AI marketplace for publishers. Other AI labs such as OpenAI have mostly relied on one-off licensing deals instead of building a platform for continuous transactions. Meanwhile, companies like Cloudflare are working on technical solutions at the network level to tackle this issue.