“We think that sites of any size should be fairly compensated for the use of their content,” Sam Rhea, who works on the emerging technology and incubation team at Cloudflare, wrote in a blog post.
To license, to walk away, or something in between?
The AI training and copyright question has been top of mind for many site owners and publishers as genAI has rapidly evolved over the last two years. Some disputes have led to high-profile lawsuits that are working their way through the court system, far more slowly than crawlers are gobbling up data.
Facing the reality of the groundbreaking technology and its staying power, some site owners and publishers have struck content licensing deals with prominent AI platforms. These give them attribution rights and sometimes include terms about what content can be accessed and how often. For instance, OpenAI has made agreements with top companies including Shutterstock, Reddit, Vox Media, Time, Universal Music Group, the Financial Times and others.
