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- Thursday 14th December: Axel Springer and OpenAI strike deal
Thursday 14th December: Axel Springer and OpenAI strike deal
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This deal is part of a shift we’ve seen happening over the past few months as it’s become increasingly apparent publisher data has been a substantial part of training large language models (LLMs). Firms like OpenAI have - wisely - sensed there’s a huge regulatory backlash incoming over the use of copyrighted content, and are now looking to do things ‘properly’ when it comes to real-time news.
A step forward…but let’s also not forget that this is the “first time OpenAI has detailed plans for ChatGPT to provide attribution to news publishers in its responses.” I don’t want to be dramatic, but they’d better be paying a butt tonne of money to even begin to make up for the brazen theft of millions of articles which have gone into feeding that beast.
“ChatGPT’s answers will include attribution and links to the full articles that the content is pulled from.” WHOOP DE DOO. Perhaps, over a year after launching, you’d like to start doing that for EVERYTHING ELSE your chatbot conjures up?
I’m off to have a little lie down.
In more ‘big companies behaving badly’ news, the jury deliberating in Epic Games’ lawsuit against Google ruled in favour of the developer, finding Google harmed Epic by creating a monopoly in in-app billing and app distribution. Casey Newton has a good run-down here, including why you should care and potential ramifications for the digital economy.
Another excellent piece looking at what it takes for A/B testing to be successful. I thought the novelty effect was especially interesting - the ‘exciting first uplift’ you get from trying something new on a test group which often disappears in a few weeks.
How do you sell and price banner ads on a B2B site, and do you have any advice or recommendations for publishers looking to change up how they do it? Join the discussion in our community forum.
This is a fascinating look behind the scenes at The Guardian’s daily news podcast Today in Focus. From the early pilot phase to the excitement of increased competition, the team tell Press Gazette how they’ve managed to build a podcast that 76% of the audience have listened to for at least a year, and 35% for more than three years.
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