Ziff Davis, the digital media heavyweight behind such familiar internet fixtures as PCMag, Mashable, and IGN, has decided it’s time to lawyer up—dragging OpenAI and its high-profile AI aspirations into federal court for a good old-fashioned copyright throwdown. If you thought the age of “robots taking our jobs” would come with more laser battles and fewer legal briefs, well, welcome to the soul-crushing reality of 2024.
At its core, Ziff Davis alleges that OpenAI has been merrily hoovering up reams of its copyrighted material to feed those famously hungry AI models. According to the complaint, publicly available news articles and reviews have become fresh meat for the insatiable AI overlords—without a whiff of permission or a whimper of compensation to their creators.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Newsrooms from New York to New Delhi have been locking horns with AI companies, lamenting content scraping, intellectual property trampling, and an existential crisis that makes print media’s decline look positively quaint.
Ziff Davis’s suit isn’t simply about lining the pockets of C-suite execs (though, let’s be honest, never say never). It’s as much about preserving what’s left of digital journalism’s soul. The company’s core complaint: If AI models can repackage trusted reporting and expert advice—word-for-word—why would anyone bother visiting the original sites or, more crucially, see all those perfectly-targeted ads?
For media companies, it’s less David-versus-Goliath and more David-versus-Goliath-and-his-robot-army. The prospect of journalists finding their scoops “hallucinated” back at them through an AI chatbot isn’t just galling—it blurs the already-misty lines between copyright, fair use, and technological innovation.
On the one hand, OpenAI (and its peers) argue that large-scale language models need a healthy diet of online text to “learn”—and that this process qualifies as fair use, a legal Hail Mary if there ever was one. On the other, those who make the material in the first place would like a slice of the AI revenue pie, or at least a say in what gets digested.
And yet, the Ziff Davis gambit could force a desperately needed conversation about how creators, aggregators, and the robots that bridge them should share the spoils—and maybe, just maybe, a way to keep journalism alive in a world that really would prefer its news without all those pesky “human” reporters.
Source: Seeking Alpha https://seekingalpha.com/news/4435612-media-company-ziff-davis-sues-openai-for-copyright-infringement-report/
At its core, Ziff Davis alleges that OpenAI has been merrily hoovering up reams of its copyrighted material to feed those famously hungry AI models. According to the complaint, publicly available news articles and reviews have become fresh meat for the insatiable AI overlords—without a whiff of permission or a whimper of compensation to their creators.If this sounds familiar, it should. Newsrooms from New York to New Delhi have been locking horns with AI companies, lamenting content scraping, intellectual property trampling, and an existential crisis that makes print media’s decline look positively quaint.
Not Just About the Bottom Line
Ziff Davis’s suit isn’t simply about lining the pockets of C-suite execs (though, let’s be honest, never say never). It’s as much about preserving what’s left of digital journalism’s soul. The company’s core complaint: If AI models can repackage trusted reporting and expert advice—word-for-word—why would anyone bother visiting the original sites or, more crucially, see all those perfectly-targeted ads?
For media companies, it’s less David-versus-Goliath and more David-versus-Goliath-and-his-robot-army. The prospect of journalists finding their scoops “hallucinated” back at them through an AI chatbot isn’t just galling—it blurs the already-misty lines between copyright, fair use, and technological innovation.
Navigating Copyright in a World Full of Bots
The lawsuit shines a klieg light on the gaping holes in current copyright law, which wasn’t designed to cope with AI models trained on the entire expanse of the open internet (because, shocker, Congress didn’t have GPT in mind in 1976). Ziff Davis’s very public legal tantrum might force lawmakers, courts, and tech CEOs to confront some uncomfortable truths.On the one hand, OpenAI (and its peers) argue that large-scale language models need a healthy diet of online text to “learn”—and that this process qualifies as fair use, a legal Hail Mary if there ever was one. On the other, those who make the material in the first place would like a slice of the AI revenue pie, or at least a say in what gets digested.
Should You Care? Actually, Yes
You might think this is just another media giant having a bad day, but the outcome could shape the future of news, search, and that answer that pops up every time you ask your favorite AI how to fix your Wi-Fi. If publishers start locking their digital doors tighter than a Y2K bunker, the web could fragment into paywalls and echo chambers. If AI gets unchecked access, expect ever more “AI-generated” content that’s only as reliable as the sources it devours.Hidden Risks… and Maybe an Opportunity?
The real risk—besides the inevitable tangle of lawsuits—is stagnation. If neither side can come to a settlement or some sort of revenue-sharing deal, there’s a genuine threat to what makes the internet useful: a free (or at least affordable) flow of credible, diverse information. News outlets and helpful how-to sites could wither, while AI chatbots end up reciting increasingly stale data from five years ago.And yet, the Ziff Davis gambit could force a desperately needed conversation about how creators, aggregators, and the robots that bridge them should share the spoils—and maybe, just maybe, a way to keep journalism alive in a world that really would prefer its news without all those pesky “human” reporters.
The Bottom Line
So, as Ziff Davis and OpenAI take their spat to court, onlookers across Silicon Valley, newsrooms, and probably every law school copyright professor’s classroom are watching for a precedent. Will we get a new digital handshake, a landmark legal doctrine, or simply a lot more mutually assured destruction between AI and the very media that trained it? Time—and an army of lawyers—will tell. Meanwhile, pour one out for those unsung fact-checkers, battling both misinformation and machine learning, one lawsuit at a time.Source: Seeking Alpha https://seekingalpha.com/news/4435612-media-company-ziff-davis-sues-openai-for-copyright-infringement-report/
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