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The New York Times sues Open AI and Microsoft, a major Open AI backer, for copyright infringement. In its complaint, which was filed Dec. 27, the Times claimed that the companies have used Times content, without its consent, to help create such AI products as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. “Defendants have effectively avoided spending the billions of dollars that The Times invested in creating that work by taking it without permission or compensation,” the Times said in the complaint. The paper is seeking damages, as well as asking that the tech companies be blocked from using its content and destroy any data sets that incorporate Times-generated material. Earlier this month Axel Springer and OpenAI reached an agreement to compensate the publisher for the use of its content in ChatGPT and OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tools.
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LinkedIn appears to be profiting from the exodus of advertisers turning away from Elon Musk’s X. The Financial Times reports that the platform’s ad revenues were up 10.1 percent year on year for 2023, reaching close to $4B. According to research firm Insider Intelligence, growth of 14.1 percent is expected for 2024. The FT said that prices for LinkedIn were spiking due to a surge of interest from advertisers—rising by up to 30 percent. The report also noted that more big brands are leaving Musk’s increasingly divisive platform. “A few weeks ago most of our clients were off X. Now they are all off X,” one ad agency executive told the FT. However, LinkedIn has yet to claim a top spot in the digital advertising market, accounting for just 1.5 percent of digital advertising by Insider Intellgence’s estimates—versus 27 percent for Google and 21 percent for Meta.
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Salem Media Group sells Regnery Publishing, which has released books from authors including Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard and Mitt Romney, to Skyhorse Publishing. The company expects to close the transaction by the end of the year. Regnery will keep its name and operate as an imprint of Skyhorse. One of the largest independent book publishers in the US, Skyhorse has had fifty-seven New York Times bestsellers and currently has over 10,000 titles in print. “We see a lot of synergies and opportunities for growth and will work hard to promote, market and sell the books we have acquired and those that are pending,” said Skyhorse Publishing president and publisher Tony Lyons.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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