The largest British media groups, including the BBC, Sky News, and The Guardian, have announced the formation of the SPUR coalition. The new organization's goal is to fight for global content licensing standards and fair compensation from technology giants for using journalism to train artificial intelligence models. Publishers are demanding transparency in the data collection process and recognition of the intellectual value of original news.
Formation of the SPUR coalition
The largest British publishers, including the BBC and The Guardian, have united to protect copyrights from AI.
Fight against illegal scraping
The group demands a halt to the free downloading of content by algorithms without creators' consent.
Call for global rules
Publishers are appealing to world leaders to introduce international licensing standards.
Data transparency
The coalition demands clear information about which specific articles are used to train AI models.
The largest entities in the British media market have taken an unprecedented step by uniting under a new initiative called SPUR (Sustainable Publishing Use of Resources). The coalition includes players such as the public broadcaster BBC, commercial Sky News, and renowned press titles like The Guardian. The group's main demand is to stop the practice of unauthorized downloading of journalistic content, known as scraping, by companies developing artificial intelligence. Publishers emphasize that without strict legal and financial regulations, the foundations of independent journalism could be irreparably damaged. This situation resembles the long-standing legal battles of publishers with Google and Meta over advertising revenue sharing, which led to the introduction of the EU copyright directive on the digital single market.The SPUR coalition is not limited to protecting interests in the British Isles. Its signatories have issued an appeal to global leaders, calling for the creation of global ethical and technical standards. Publishers argue that multimodal models are trained on the work of thousands of correspondents and editors, while the profits from these tools go solely to technology corporations. This initiative aims to force AI companies to adopt a responsible approach to intellectual property. The group announces active lobbying for regulations that will guarantee transparency: technology companies should clearly indicate which sources were used to train their algorithms. „The formation of SPUR is a critical moment for protecting original journalism from the unpaid use by artificial intelligence systems.” — Coalition representativeThe actions of British media fit into a broader market trend where publishers are moving from defense to specific financial claims. It is pointed out that reliable, verified facts are the most desirable fuel for modern AI, and their lack will weaken the quality of machine-generated answers. The coalition plans regular audits of practices used by large language models and seeks to introduce systemic licensing solutions that could become a model for other countries, including members of the European Union.
Perspektywy mediów: Emphasizes the need to protect jobs and the social value of journalism as a public good requiring digital subsidies. Focuses on enforcing property rights, free markets, and protecting corporate profits from unfair technological competition.