U.K. Media Giants, Including BBC and Sky, Form AI Publishing Rights Coalition, Ask Global Leaders to Join to “Protect Original Journalism”

U.K. media bosses have formed a coalition over AI publishing rights and penned an open letter pleading with fellow global leaders to join them.

Outgoing director-general at the BBC Tim Davie, Sky News executive chairman David Rhodes, CEO at the Telegraph Media Group Anna Jones, CEO of The Guardian Anna Bateson, and CEO of the Financial Times Jon Slade published the letter on Thursday, inviting others to come aboard SPUR — the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights coalition.

“We write to you at a pivotal moment for our industry. Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how content is created, distributed, discovered and monetised,” the letter began. “We believe we need to come together to protect original journalism and secure the long-term sustainability of our industry.”

“AI brings opportunities for publishers and our audience,” said the SPUR members. “Our organisations are already at the forefront of using AI in responsible ways to benefit our audiences. But AI also raises urgent questions about fairness, consent, attribution, transparency and trust.”

Across the industry, they say, “our reporting, our archives, our original content, have become foundational training material for AI systems.” This material has been “scraped, copied and reused with no common standards to enable permission or payment, weakening the economic model that supports journalism.”

The lack of transparency about how AI answers are created “risks eroding public trust in both the news and the technologies used to access it,” they add.

The SPUR mission is to establish shared technical standards and licensing frameworks that ensure AI developers can access high-quality, reliable journalism in “legitimate, responsible and convenient ways,” while guaranteeing publishers “retrain practical control of their content.” They vow to “bridge the gap” between publishers and AI developers, and ensure content can be accessed through rights-cleared, accountable channels.

The letter calls the issue “a global challenge, and SPUR’s ambition is to be a global coalition.”