In the recent struggle over copyright and data, Big Tech emerged victorious. The ramifications are profound for publication, business, and the web’s future.
This fact has been brought closer to the legal consensus by two recent US court decisions, one of which supported Anthropic’s usage of millions of books for AI training: Online material is now open to everybody. It’s possible that businesses like Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft won’t ever have to pay for the text, photos, or videos they use to fuel their AI tools.
This is a major victory for the new AI economy and Big Tech. However, it may completely upend the web and the people who make it vibrant. Written language and most likely other information lose value if AI can repackage all digital knowledge in milliseconds. For present, the US Copyright Office’s claim that the market for the original work is being undermined by this deluge of new content has not convinced courts. Fair use seems to be shielding the AI giants for the time being.
For Big Tech and the emerging AI economy, this is a tremendous triumph. But it has the potential to destroy the web and the people who make it possible. The worth of written language and most likely other information will decrease if AI is able to repackage all digital knowledge in milliseconds. For the time being, courts do not appear to be convinced by the US Copyright Office’s claim that the market for the original work is being weakened by this deluge of new content. The titans of AI seem to be protected for the time being by fair usage.
Pushing back with a new tool to make AI pay-per-crawl, Cloudflare, which operates one of the biggest networks on the internet, is changing the paradigm from opt-out to opt-in. Ziff Davis, Time, and The Atlantic are among the publishers involved.
These decisions could cause a more significant change. Creators may reconsider where and how they distribute information online now that the restrictions on content scraping have been lifted. The Terminal is where Bloomberg maintains its news reports. Ben Thompson, a tech blogger, stays well behind a paywall and utilizes newsletters. Microsoft’s just launched “Signal” magazine? Only print.
In a future where AI bots are free to wander, the most important ideas can disappear or go offline. Perhaps we are at the start of a new period of privacy, scarcity, and perhaps even paper.
