A group of prominent British news organisations has launched a joint initiative calling for global standards to ensure artificial intelligence companies pay for and respect the use of original journalism. The coalition, named Standards for Publisher Usage Rights, or Spur, brings together the Guardian, BBC, Financial Times, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group to press for binding licensing arrangements and technical protections for journalistic content.

The organisations set out their concerns in an open letter signed by senior executives, including the BBC director general Tim Davie, the Guardian’s chief executive Anna Bateson, the Sky News executive chair David Rhodes, the Telegraph Media Group chief executive Anna Jones and the Financial Times chief executive Jon Slade. The letter warns that news output has been repurposed without common standards for permission or payment and urges peers across publishing, broadcasting and media to join the effort. “Across the industry, our reporting, our archives, our original content, have become foundational training material for AI systems,” the signatories wrote in the letter.

Spur’s stated objectives include the creation of global licensing frameworks that enable AI firms to access high‑quality journalism for use in products such as chatbots while ensuring publishers retain control of their material and receive fair compensation. The coalition also says it will support development of technical tools to protect intellectual property and improve transparency around how journalistic content is used,with the aim of setting shared industry standards to govern interactions between publishers and AI developers.

Industry executives argue this push is a response to the rapid spread of generative AI models,which are trained on large swathes of internet content and can reproduce or summarise reporting without publishers’ consent. The open letter contends that such unregulated reuse has weakened the economic model that sustains reporting,archives and original content,undermining news organisations’ ability to fund investigative and public interest journalism.

The move by major news brands follows wider action by creators and representative bodies seeking remedies for what they say is unlawful use of copyrighted material by technology firms. Campaigns led by groups such as the Creators’ Rights Alliance and coalition responses from musicians, writers and film organisations have previously pushed back against proposals that would have allowed automated training on published works unless creators opted out,arguing instead for clearer protections and remuneration.

The coalition invites other media organisations globally to join Spur and says collaboration is necessary to build systems that both protect reporting and allow responsible AI development. The founding members stress that,by negotiating common rules and technical standards,publishers hope to secure sustainable revenue streams for journalism while enabling transparent and lawful integration of news content into emerging AI products.

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Source: Noah Wire Services