'The New York Times' Prohibits AI From Using Its Content for Training Purposes
Updating its Terms of Service to address looming concerns.
The New York Times is taking precautionary measures to prevent AI from scraping the publication’s content for training of AI models or systems. The publication recently updated its Terms and Conditions to directly address the preemptive concern.
Section 2 – entitled Content on the Services – of the Times‘ Terms of Service now reflects the rise of AI in the journalism industry. Condensed for clarity and conciseness, the clause reads as follows:
“All materials published or available on the Services (including, but not limited to text, photographs, images, illustrations, designs, audio clips, video clips, “look and feel,” metadata, data, or compilations, all also known as the “Content”) are protected by copyright, and owned or controlled by The New York Times Company or the party credited as the provider of the Content [...] Non-commercial use does not include the use of Content without prior written consent from The New York Times Company in connection with: (1) the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system; or (2) providing archived or cached data sets containing Content to another person or entity.”
Under the Terms’ fourth section, the Prohibited Use of the Services section, The Times has also added a clause that directly addresses the ban. “Without NYT’s prior written consent, you shall not: [...] (2) use robots, spiders, scripts, service, software or any manual or automatic device, tool, or process designed to data mine or scrape the Content, data or information from the Services, or otherwise use, access, or collect the Content, data or information from the Services using automated means; (3) use the Content for the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.”
Elsewhere in tech news, Waymo and Cruise were given the green light to offer 24/7 driverless rides around San Francisco.
