Woo or sue: media giant lays out AI theft defence
Global media giant News Corporation continues to build a moat around its media assets against intellectual property theft by large AI tools hungry for data and content.
Australian CEO Robert Thomson on Friday responded to concerns about the AI threat to legacy media organizations in the US information and news space.
There was a misconception about the impact of AI on News Corp, which owns several major media imprints in Australia, he told analysts on an earnings call.
“AI is backward-looking and synthesizes the overall content, sometimes imperfectly,” Mr. Thomson said.
“We have contemporary, creative, exclusive content that is only accessible if AI companies pay us – our build-or-sue strategy.
“We are deliberately building a moat, and it is a moat where saltwater crocodiles, sharks and a much more dangerous species live: the lawyers.”
Mr Thomson noted the recently settled US$1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) lawsuit brought by a group of authors against AI company Anthropic for copyright infringements after it scrapped and exploited half a million published works from pirate websites.
Anthropic argued that its actions fell within “fair use” practices, but the court ultimately disagreed.
“We and our writers (News Corp owns publisher Harper Collins) will receive the bulk of that money later this year,” Mr Thomson said.
It also has a partnership with OpenAI to “improve” News Corp’s editorial and other products.
“We are absolutely confident in our ability to create engaging premium content and experiences in an age where many AI companies will recycle trash,” he said.
“AI models need data… they need real-time, real-world data, and that is what we are generating every minute of every day.”
New Corp on Friday reported a 6 percent increase in second-quarter revenue to $US2.4 billion ($3.4 billion), in line with analysts’ forecasts, driven by the Dow Jones information services powerhouse that includes The Wall Street Journal.
This result was helped by Australia’s digital property services unit, which includes online real estate company REA and its book publishing segment.
Quarterly core earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization reached US$521 million, up nine percent from the previous period.
In the half-year ending December 31, revenue rose seven per cent to US$1.2 billion ($1.7 billion), while underlying earnings rose seven per cent to US$861 million (US$1.2 billion).
While the Dow Jones remains the jewel in News Corp’s media crown, other news media assets in the UK and Australia, including Britain’s The Times and The Australian, reported flat quarterly revenue and a four per cent decline in underlying earnings, mainly due to a tough print advertising market.
This was due “mainly to the low contribution of New Corp Australia” and the modest investment in the New York Post related to the opening of the California Post.
The six-month result was also flat at US$1.1 billion ($1.6 billion).
However, as digital subscriber numbers increased, circulation and subscription revenue increased in the UK and Australia, driven by higher prices, according to the company’s internal data.
News Corp Australia had 1.2 million digital subscribers and almost a million news imprint subscribers at the end of December.
“We are pleased with the strength shown across the business during the second quarter and the signs so far are clearly positive for the second half of the year,” Mr Thomson said.
News Corp shares fell almost two per cent to $39.74 in morning trading on the Australian stock exchange.
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