Meta (META.US) is negotiating with media organizations on AI content licensing matters.

According to The Wall Street Journal, in recent months, Meta (META.US) has been in talks with multiple media companies, planning to obtain the rights to their articles for use in the development of its artificial intelligence (AI) products. The media companies involved include Axel Springer, Fox Corporation (FOX.US), and News Corporation (NWS.US). The report quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying that Meta, as the parent company of Instagram and WhatsApp, owns various AI-driven products like the chatbot Siasun Robot&Automation. The core of the negotiations with the media companies is to secure the rights to use news and other content for these AI products. Currently, Meta, Fox, and News Corporation have not responded immediately to requests for comments. Axel Springer has stated that they will not comment on market rumors. The report pointed out that some of the negotiations are still in the preliminary stages and may not necessarily result in new agreements. It is noteworthy that Fox Corporation and News Corporation, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, are "sister companies" with common shareholders. The relationship between Meta and media publishers has always been "mixed." The report mentioned that the American tech giant had invested millions of dollars in partnerships several years ago to include content from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Company Class A, The Washington Post, and other media in its "news" section. However, in 2022, Meta announced that it would stop paying content fees to publishers. Due to Meta's decrease in priority for news content on its platform, many publishers have experienced a significant decline in traffic from its social platform Facebook. However, the report also mentioned that in recent months, some publishers have reported a resurgence in traffic from Facebook. The rapid advancement of AI technology is impacting the publishing industry: tech companies are using web crawlers to scrape website content and using this content to train their large language models (LLMs). In response, publishers are taking measures to restrict unpaid AI crawlers from accessing their websites. In July of this year, the cybersecurity company Cloudflare updated its default settings to block AI crawlers that do not pay for content. The report also mentioned that although Meta reached an AI content licensing agreement with Reuters last October, it has only recently begun broader negotiations with various publishers. Meanwhile, many of Meta's competitors have already finalized multiple AI content licensing agreements in the news industry. For example, OpenAI, supported by Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), has signed licensing agreements with News Corporation, Axel Springer, and Dotdash Meredith (now renamed People Inc.); Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) has also reached similar agreements with The New York Times Company Class A.