The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

According to MIDiA’s newest report, “Audio’s entertainment value: Examining audio listeners’ cross-entertainment lives”, podcasts and audiobooks have the potential to provide music rightsholders with one of the highest value audience segments out there. Across the board, data shows audio listeners are more willing than music streamers to engage with digital marketing efforts like pre-saves, add music to their collections, listen to full albums on streaming services, and listen to songs they have Shazamed.

Source: The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Guardian signs licensing deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAI

The Guardian has become the latest news publisher to sign a deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAI over content licensing. The deal will ensure The Guardian receives compensation for the use of its journalism on ChatGPT and gets properly credited on the platform. Under the deal The Guardian will also be able to use OpenAI technology in-house.

Source: Guardian signs licensing deal with ChatGPT owner OpenAI

OpenAI lays out plans for GPT-5

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman detailed plans for the company’s GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 AI models in a roadmap published on X on Wednesday. In the post, Altman also acknowledged that OpenAI’s product lineup has gotten complicated and says that the company wants to do “a much better job” simplifying its offerings. “We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence,” Altman says.

Source: OpenAI lays out plans for GPT-5

Hollywood writers say AI is ripping off their work. They want studios to sue

When the Writers Guild of America approved a contract with major studios in 2023, ending a 148-day strike, the union became the first bargaining group to gain significant guardrails around artificial intelligence in Hollywood. But as AI innovation continues to advance, writers say they need more protection from studios. Now, they’re urging entertainment companies to take legal action against AI firms that they allege are using writers’ work to train AI models without their permission.

.

Source: Hollywood writers say AI is ripping off their work. They want studios to sue

The End of TV Is Here

On March 2, one of the last pillars of linear TV will fall: the Academy Awards. Hollywood’s biggest night is a celebration of cinema, but this year it may as well double as a requiem for traditional TV. For the first time in the history of the broadcast, the Oscars will be streamed live outside of the pay TV ecosystem, on Disney’s Hulu, alongside its broadcast home on ABC.

Source: The End of TV Is Here

DeepSeek launch underlines value of news content to AI companies

The release of the new R1 model by China-based AI start-up DeepSeek has a number of important implications for news publishers, cutting across the future economics of AI, the ability of IP holders to protect their rights and the risks that these technologies pose to the broader information ecosystem. DeepSeek’s training data was obtained without authorisation or even transparency; the crawlers it is using are undeclared, third-party or hidden.

Source: DeepSeek launch underlines value of news content to AI companies

AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed for everyone

Web publishers have responded to AI with a trifecta of lawsuits, legislation, and computer science. What began with a litany of copyright infringement suits, including one from the New York Times, has turned into a wave of restrictions on use of websites’ data, as well as legislation such as the EU AI Act to protect copyright holders’ ability to opt out of AI training.

Source: AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed for everyone

Thousands of Artists Demand Christie’s Cancels AI Art Sale

An open letter to the house signed by almost 4,000 people is demanding Christie’s bins its “Augmented Intelligence” auction, slated to run from February 20 to March 5. It’s billed as the “first-ever AI-dedicated sale at a major auction house.” Artists Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz, two signatories the letter. They are taking AI companies to court over claims that the firms’ image generation tools have used their work without permission.

Source: Thousands of Artists Demand Christie’s Cancels AI Art Sale: ‘AI Models Exploit Humans’

AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds

Four major artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are inaccurately summarising news stories, according to research carried out by the BBC. The BBC gave OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini and Perplexity AI content from the BBC website then asked them questions about the news. It said the resulting answers contained “significant inaccuracies” and distortions.

Source: AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds

Thomson Reuters wins an early court battle over AI, copyright, and fair use

On Tuesday, US District Court of Delaware judge Stephanos Bibas issued a partial summary judgment in favor of Thomson Reuters in its copyright infringement lawsuit against Ross Intelligence, a legal AI startup. Filed in 2020, it’s one of the first cases that will deal with the legality of AI tools and how they are trained, often using copyrighted data scraped from somewhere else without license or permission.

Source: Thomson Reuters wins an early court battle over AI, copyright, and fair use

Get the latest RightsTech news and analysis delivered directly in your inbox every week
We respect your privacy.