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Meta has expanded its AI partnerships, announcing that its chatbot will now use information from CNN, Fox News, USA Today and People Inc.

It has also signed deals with The Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner and France’s Le Monde.

This comes as publishers continue to challenge AI firms over how their work is used.

Meta says these agreements will help its AI give faster, more reliable information from a wider mix of sources.

Here’s what you should know:

• AI companies are turning to licensing as legal disputes grow.
• Publishers are using lawsuits to set boundaries on how AI models use their work.
• Tech platforms are rethinking how they work with news, focusing on clearer agreements.

A new playbook?

The shift toward licensing follows Meta’s decision to move away from traditional news deals, close Facebook’s News tab and remove news from its platforms in Canada after a law required payment to publishers.

Other AI companies are following a similar path.

OpenAI has licensing deals with outlets including The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Future and Vox Media, while also facing its own lawsuit from The New York Times.

Every time AI companies announce a licensing deal, a lawyer somewhere buys a nicer coffee. – MV

Via mindstream reporting

The New York Times has filed a new lawsuit against AI search startup Perplexity, accusing the company of using its journalism without permission.

Other outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, have recently made similar claims.

The Times says Perplexity’s tools pull information from news sites, sometimes from behind paywalls, and turn it into answers for users through its RAG-based chatbots and Comet browser assistant.

It also claims some responses copy its articles too closely or attribute inaccurate information to the outlet.

This legal action sits within a wider industry push.

Many publishers are negotiating licensing deals with AI companies, but lawsuits have become a way to pressure firms into paying for news content.

Perplexity has introduced revenue-sharing programmes and signed a licensing deal with Getty Images, but the Times argues its content is still being used without agreement.

Perplexity says publishers have challenged new technologies for decades, but the case adds to growing scrutiny.

News Corp, Britannica, Nikkei, Reddit, Wired and Forbes have all criticised the company’s data practices, and Cloudflare recently confirmed that Perplexity scraped sites that had blocked it.

In short:

• The Times claims Perplexity uses its journalism without permission, including paywalled material.
• The lawsuit is part of a wider push for licensing and compensation from AI firms.
• Courts are still deciding how copyright rules apply to AI training and AI-generated answers.

Paywalls are not having it

The Times is also suing OpenAI and Microsoft over how its articles were used for AI training.

Courts are still defining what “fair use” means in these cases, though a recent settlement in a similar lawsuit against Anthropic suggests that licensed and unlicensed data may be treated very differently.

The Times wants damages and a court order stopping Perplexity from using its work.

At the same time, it continues to sign paid licensing deals with other AI firms, reflecting how publishers are trying to find sustainable ways to work with AI.

AI companies beefing with newspapers feels like Season 4 of a show nobody wrote. – MG

Via mindstream reporting