The New York Times Company and Amazon have announced a multi-year licensing agreement that will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences. This broadens the companies’ existing relationship, and will bring additional value to Amazon customers and bring Times journalism to wider audiences.
With this new agreement, Amazon is licensing editorial content from The New York Times, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic for AI-related uses. This will include real-time display of summaries and short excerpts of Times content within Amazon products and services, such as Alexa, and training Amazon’s proprietary foundation models.
The collaboration will make The New York Times’s original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services, including direct links to Times products, and underscores the companies’ shared commitment to serving customers with global news and perspectives within Amazon’s AI products.
“The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for,” addressed Meredith Kopit Levien, the CEO of The New York Times Company, in a note to staff at the Times. “It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights.”
The deal between the Times and Amazon comes after the publication took Microsoft and OpenAI to court for copyright infringement. Over a year ago the New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft claiming that the two companies built their AI models by “copying and using millions” of its articles, allegedly stripping the publication of subscription, licensing, advertising, and affiliate revenue.
The case is still in the courts, with federal judge Sidney Stein, of the Southern District of New York, rejecting OpenAI’s request to abandon the copyright lawsuit.
