Publishers join SPUR coalition to combat unauthorized AI use

The Standards for Publisher Usage Rights (SPUR) coalition has expanded to more than 80 members across over 20 countries. New additions include The New York Times, The Economist, Agence France-Presse, The Atlantic, and Brazil’s National Association of Newspapers, joining founding members such as the BBC, Associated Press, and Financial Times.

The coalition aims to prevent artificial intelligence companies from using or profiting from media content without permission to train large language models. SPUR is developing industry-wide standards and technical systems, such as the recently introduced Content Telemetry Standard, to help publishers track AI usage and facilitate licensing agreements.

This movement comes amid ongoing legal challenges, including copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft by various news organizations and authors. Additionally, publishers are facing a decline in referral traffic as AI-generated search results allow users to consume information without visiting original websites.