NYT Prohibits Using Its Content to Train AI

The rise of AI may bring back website copyright wars similar to those fought in the late '90s over the framing of and linking to websites. Within the last couple of weeks, several large content purveyors including some trade publications and the New York Times have updated their user terms to prohibit the use of their material to train AI tools. If you are a copyright nerd: congratulations!  You can look forward to some heady times.  

Why It Matters (Even to Non-Copyright Nerds)

If you are using AI-assisted tools to generate any kind of output for your business -- code, catalog copy, newsletters, anything -- be sure you understand how the tool you use interacts with source data on the web. Then make sure your AI tool's operation is consistent with your licenses to that source content. For example, linking to a news article may be fine; allowing the AI tool to ingest the news article as it helps you create a blog entry may not be. If you don't know how your tools work, or whether your licenses might restrict something, ask your vendors. Everyone is figuring this out right now, and they are likely to be cooperative in getting to the bottom of things.  

Also, be sure you raise awareness with employees. You can be certain they are using AI tools on your network, even if you don't yet know about them. Now is the time to take some affirmative steps to train those employees about how AI can affect the company.