Media Officials Ask Senate to Protect Their Businesses From AI

WASHINGTON — Officials from media organizations made a plea to a Senate panel Wednesday for help to protect local news from being exploited by the artificial intelligence used by internet platforms.

Local news outlets produce the stories that appear in newspapers and on television stations but large technology companies that republish them profit from them, they told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

In many cases, artificial intelligence programs select information from local news without permission from media organizations to produce only slightly altered content that gets republished elsewhere. Other times, content gets published under the name of a media organization that consists of AI-generated fakes.

Demands from the media organizations for compensation for their republished news stories have been largely ignored by major technology companies, according to witnesses at the Senate hearing. They also said these companies offer them almost no protection against “deepfakes.”

The accused technology companies say they are acting lawfully under the Fair Use Doctrine.

The Fair Use Doctrine is a legal protection against copyright infringement if the republication is “transformative” by using it for commentary, criticism or parody. In such cases, permission from the copyright owner is not needed.

The local news organizations disagree.

“These technologies should be licensing our content,” said Curtis LeGeyt, chief executive of the National Association of Broadcasters. “If they’re not, then Congress should act.”

Although television and radio stations can be hurt by unlicensed use of their content, the hardest hit has fallen on newspapers.

The United States is predicted to have only one-third as many newspapers by the end of this year compared with 2005, according to a recent report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. There are about 6,000 newspapers left in America, down from 8,891 in 2005.

From 2008 to 2020, newspaper advertising revenue dropped from $37 billion a year to $9 billion a year, according to Senate figures cited at the subcommittee hearing.

Media officials at the Senate hearing blamed the internet and generative artificial intelligence for the increasing rate that local news organizations go out of business.

“AI will only make the situation gravely worse,” said Danielle Coffey, president of the News Media Alliance, a trade association representing about 2,200 news organizations.

With only a few large internet platforms that republish local stories to help news outlets reach the advertisers they seek, the media organizations say they have minimal bargaining power to demand payment.

“We have no choice but to acquiesce to their terms,” Coffey said.

Complaints by the media officials won wide agreement by lawmakers on the subcommittee.

“It just seems to make sense the creators of the content should get some compensation,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked, “How are we going to be able to make sure they keep control of it?” in reference to copyrights of news producers.

Lawmakers generally agreed during the hearing that they should consider modifying Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

It grants immunity from liability for internet platforms for republishing content generated by its users. In many cases, the immunity extends to copyright infringement.

Another leading proposal in Congress is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, S. 1094. It would authorize journalism organizations to collectively negotiate with large online platforms over the terms and conditions of the platforms’ use of content.

Currently, each contract with a news organization is negotiated separately, giving media companies little leverage in their payment demands.

You can reach us at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook and X.