It might be RAGs to riches for AI, but not for us warn news media

While arguments rage over Artificial Intelligence (AI) and copyright – and whether systems trained on proprietary data without consent or payment are transforming that content, rather than copying it – much of the focus has been on the creative sectors.

Fine artists, illustrators, photographers, authors, musicians, and filmmakers are among the many professionals affected by the rise of automated competitors trained on their work. Most are self-employed, and so campaigning against the might of multi-billion-dollar tech corporations is difficult.

But one industry is sometimes overlooked in these discussions, because it seems more powerful: the news and information sector. But is it?

While an artwork, book, song, or film is more obviously the intellectual property of the rightsholder(s), news organizations of every size invest in journalism, on-the-ground reporting, analysis, and opinion, and so have every right to expect that a third party can’t simply scrape their content and re-purpose it within ...