THE FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER
An Open Letter to Our Fellow Leaders in World Media
From: Tim Davie, BBC Director-Common; Jon Slade, CEO, Monetary Occasions; Anna Bateson, CEO, The Guardian; David Rhodes, Government Chairman, Sky Information; Anna Jones, CEO, Telegraph Media Group
We write to you at a pivotal second for our business.
We invite you – international leaders throughout publishing, broadcasting, media and information – to affix us as founding members of a brand new coalition: SPUR – the Requirements for Writer Utilization Rights coalition.
Synthetic Intelligence is basically reshaping how content material is created, distributed, found and monetised. We imagine we have to come collectively to guard unique journalism and safe the long-term sustainability of our business.
AI brings alternatives for publishers and our viewers. Our organisations are already on the forefront of utilizing AI in accountable methods to profit our audiences. However AI additionally raises pressing questions on equity, consent, attribution, transparency and belief.
Throughout the business, our reporting, our archives, our unique content material, have grow to be foundational coaching materials for AI methods. This materials has been scraped, copied and reused with no widespread requirements to allow permission or fee, weakening the financial mannequin that helps journalism. The shortage of transparency about how AI solutions are created dangers eroding public belief in each the information and the applied sciences used to entry it.
SPUR’s mission is evident: to ascertain shared technical requirements and accountable licensing frameworks that guarantee AI builders can entry top quality, dependable journalism in authentic, accountable and handy methods, whereas guaranteeing that publishers retain sensible management of their content material and obtain truthful worth when it’s used.
The coalition will:
• Develop shared business requirements, creating accountable methods for unique journalism for use sustainably
• Scale back friction in licensing and bridge the hole between publishers and AI builders
• Determine gaps within the technical instruments wanted to guard mental property, and help their creation
• Guarantee excessive worth content material might be accessed by rights cleared, accountable channels
• Consider current business infrastructure and assess the place new applied sciences or approaches are wanted
• Allow clear, scalable use of journalistic content material
For greater than two centuries, media organisations have invested in journalism and newsgathering that underpin knowledgeable, related societies. Our work strengthens democracy, empowers residents, and holds these in energy to account. This contribution rests not solely on our attain, however on the requirements that maintain it: editorial accuracy, accountability and belief. Belief earned over a long time.
It is a international problem, and SPUR’s ambition is to be a worldwide coalition. Working throughout the business, we are able to construct methods that respect unique reporting, uphold public belief, and allow each journalism and AI to thrive. Collectively, we’ll work with tech corporations to undertake accountable, rights-cleared pathways to journalistic content material, and with policymakers to construct a contemporary regulatory framework that protects writer rights and units clear expectations for accountable AI improvement.
Our objective is to assist form a market that rewards unique reporting and helps accountable AI innovation.
We look ahead to listening to from you.
David Rhodes, Government Chairman, Sky Information
Anna Jones, CEO, Telegraph Media Group
Anna Bateson, CEO, The Guardian
Tim Davie, BBC Director-Common
Jon Slade, CEO, Monetary Occasions
