Notes

Google now pays more than 400 news publishers for AI use of their journalism. That is not a market. It is a panel.

On 15 October Google said its News AI pilot had passed 400 publications, with CNN, the FT, Axios and Forbes among the new names. No price is public.

It does not need to be. The buyer is also the company that decides how much search traffic each of those 400 publishers gets tomorrow. Nobody negotiates hard with the hand that ranks them. Google does not have to dictate the price. It is the only party at the table that could.

Nine days earlier, six scientific publishers went the other way through Redpine, a Swedish start-up: each publisher sets what an AI agent may use and what it pays per transaction.

My bet: when the pilot cheques stop, the publishers still earning from AI will be the ones who set their own price.

Publishers signing with OpenAI are being paid for their content. They're also handing over the front door.

In September it was BCCL, owner of the Times of India, and the Indian Express Group: reportedly around $5 million and $3 million a year. News Corp's 2024 deal was reported at more than $250 million over five years, including technology credits.

What ChatGPT shows: their reporting and archives, summarised, with a link back.

What they hand over: the moment the reader asks the question. When it's asked in ChatGPT, it happens in someone else's product. A link back is not a visit.

Saying no doesn't bring the reader back either. That's the trap.

Renewal season has already started elsewhere. Reddit has reportedly been negotiating a successor to its $60 million a year Google deal, and discussed ending Google's AI access.

My bet: none of these deals renews at a higher annual fee for the same rights.

UMG just signed the Spotify deal again, this time one layer up.

On 10 September it announced a multi-year licensing and product deal with ElevenLabs, the AI audio company. Fans will remix, mash up and reinterpret music from participating artists and songwriters on a new platform.

ElevenLabs will launch it and operate it.

The labels got paid by Spotify. Spotify got the listener.

Now the fan who cares enough to remix a song will do it on someone else's product too. Every remix will show which songs, which artists and which sounds fans actually want to play with. That data will be created on ElevenLabs' platform, not UMG's.

A rake on someone else's platform is a rake on loan.