MW Beyond the 'brazen theft' of news: The entire $12 trillion creative economy may now be at risk from AI
By Lukas I. Alpert
AI firms heavily use news and other creative content to provide answers - but New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger says their resistance to pay for it amounts to a repackaging of 'stolen goods'
New York Times Chair and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned about the future of journalism in the face of what he called "brazen theft" by AI companies at the World News Media Congress in France on Monday.
As artificial-intelligence firms rise, will the fortunes of media companies sink even further?
The already embattled media industry - which has seen its business model repeatedly disrupted by technological advances - largely believes so, with executives arguing that the upheaval AI is expected to bring could possibly spell the end for news as we know it.
And it may not stop there, according to recent comments from New York Times $(NYT)$ Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who suggested that creative industries in general could be in peril if the status quo remains.
The issue has revolved around AI companies using published news and creative content to train their models and to provide answers to their users. Media companies have argued that this amounts to copyright theft that draws readers away from their platforms, posing a serious threat to their businesses.
In response, some AI firms have argued that published content - from news articles to books and academic research - fall under fair-use rules. Others have reached deals to pay for such content. These disputes have also led to multiple lawsuits that will ultimately be decided by the courts.
Sulzberger didn't mince words on the issue, calling what AI companies do "brazen theft" of new organizations' intellectual property, in a speech earlier this week. He warned that the issue doesn't stop at journalism, with the future of publishing, music and academic research also at stake.
The Times has been locked in an ongoing legal dispute with OpenAI, Microsoft $(MSFT)$ and Perplexity for the past two-and-a-half years over their use of the Times' reporting for their products.
Speaking at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in France on Monday, Sulzberger said the lawsuits have cost the Times $20 million to fight, but that the actions of the AI companies had left the paper little choice.
"Their hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their AI products - a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale," he said. "Tech giants strip-mine news websites without permission or compensation. They repackage these stolen goods as their own, siphoning off the audiences and revenue that otherwise would go to the news organizations that created this work. And this happens not just once during the training process, but countless times every single day."
He said that if left unchecked, the practice could result in readers getting their information solely from AI platforms, with fewer and fewer ever clicking on a news article - bleeding revenue from newsrooms and making it harder for them to do the expensive work of journalism, if they survive at all.
Messages left with representatives for OpenAI and Perplexity weren't immediately returned.
Sulzberger said he is not opposed to AI in general, as long as the companies are willing to pay for using information from news sources. To that end, the Times reached a licensing deal last year with Amazon (AMZN) allowing the tech giant to use its news content.
Sulzberger said that AI companies' quest for data to feed their systems extends beyond news, however, and had led to a raid on "civilization's entire corpus of original works," which poses a threat to the future of book publishing, movies, music and research.
"In the United States, these industries represent not just the heart of American cultural and intellectual life, but a pillar of its economy and one of its most powerful exports," Sulzberger said. "Globally, creative professions employ over 50 million people worldwide who produce roughly $12 trillion of economic value a year."
Other news organizations have similarly sought to reach licensing deals with AI companies while also being willing to go to court.
News Corp $(NWSA)$ (NWS) - the parent company of Dow Jones, which publishes MarketWatch - has reached deals with OpenAI and Meta Platforms (META) to license content from its publications for AI use. At the same time, Dow Jones and the New York Post, which is also owned by News Corp, have been engaged in a lawsuit with Perplexity over AI copyright issues since 2024.
"It is clear that expectations of AI's impact are continuing to evolve and that the more perceptive players have come to realize that provenance is paramount," News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said during the company's second-quarter earnings call in February. "What is the point of acquiring cutting-edge semiconductors if they are being deployed to repurpose gormless, factless, feckless content sets? We do believe an increasing number of insightful companies understand this content contradiction and will indeed pay a premium for our premium content."
Late last month, Warner Bros. Discovery's $(WBD)$ CNN filed a lawsuit against Perplexity alleging AI copyright theft.
Sulzberger noted that many news organizations, buffeted by years of declining business due to broad technological changes, have few resources to fight back, but he urged them to stand together to fight for the survival of the industry. He said that reaching deals with AI firms may not always be the best solution, as those can hand tech giants even further control of distribution channels and ways to reach audiences.
"This will take courage - and sometimes resources, which are in short supply - but the alternative path of quietly tolerating the systematic theft of your work will eventually end your ability to continue it," he warned.
-Lukas I. Alpert
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 02, 2026 15:44 ET (19:44 GMT)
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