OpenAI signs multi-year content agreement with News Corp

What happened

On 22 May 2024, OpenAI and News Corp announced a multi-year agreement giving OpenAI access to current and archived content from News Corp publications including the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, the New York Post, The Times and others, for use in OpenAI's products and AI model development. The Wall Street Journal reported the deal could be worth more than $250 million over five years; OpenAI did not disclose financial terms. The agreement followed similar content deals OpenAI struck with the Financial Times and Reddit, and excludes News Corp's non-publishing businesses.

Why it may matter to you

Licensing deals like this one show the parallel track to litigation: some large publishers are choosing paid partnerships over lawsuits. For individual creators, the deal is a data point on what AI companies pay for rights-cleared archives at scale — and on the gap between what the largest publishers can negotiate and what smaller rightsholders are offered, which so far is nothing under these bilateral deals.

What is not yet known

The full terms were not disclosed, including how (or whether) any of the value flows to the journalists whose work is licensed. The agreement does not resolve the underlying legal question of whether training on unlicensed content is infringement; other publishers, including The New York Times, continue to litigate rather than license.