Amazon may launch a marketplace where media sites can sell their content to AI companies

The AI industry’s pursuit of licensable content has been a messy affair, filled with lawsuits and accusations of copyright infringement. Now, as tech companies look for legally safe sources of AI training data, Amazon is reportedly considering launching a marketplace where publishers can license their content directly to AI companies.

The Information reported Monday that the e-commerce giant has been meeting with publishing executives and alerting them to its plans to launch such a marketplace. Ahead of an AWS conference for publishers that occurred Tuesday, Amazon “circulated slides that mention a content marketplace,” wrote the outlet.

Reached by TechCrunch, an Amazon spokesperson didn’t deny the story but didn’t directly address the would-be marketplace either, saying only: “Amazon has built long-lasting, innovative relationships with publishers across many areas of our business, including AWS, Retail, Advertising, AGI, and Alexa. We are always innovating together to best serve our customers, but we have nothing specific to share on this subject at this time.” 

Amazon wouldn’t be the first major tech company to take this route. Microsoft recently launched what it calls a Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM), which it says will give publishers “a new revenue stream” while also providing AI systems with “scaled access to premium content.” Microsoft added that the PCM was designed to “empower publishers with a transparent economic framework for licensing” their content.

The move is a natural next step for the AI industry, which has already sought to solve the legally nebulous problem of how copyrighted material ends up in AI training data by forging deals with major news outlets and media organizations. OpenAI, for instance, has already signed content-licensing partnerships with the Associated Press, Vox Media, News Corp, and The Atlantic, among others.  

Those efforts haven’t been enough to stem the legal fallout. The fight over copyrighted material in AI algorithms has led to a monsoon of lawsuits, and the issue is still being worked out by the judicial system. New regulatory strategies to deal with the issue are being proposed all the time.

Media publishers have also fretted about the ways in which AI summaries — particularly those surfaced by Google in its search results — may be depressing traffic to their sites. One recent study claimed that such summaries have had a “devastating” impact on the number of users clicking through to websites. The Information’s report notes that publishers may view the new marketplace-based content-sharing system as a “more sustainable business [than current, more limited licensing partnerships] that will scale up revenue” as AI usage continues to escalate.