The Challenges of AI for B2B Media

PART 1

Tracy Kane, J.D., CIPP/E, CIPM

Chief Administrative & 

Legal Officer

Endeavor Business Media

As Artificial Intelligence models (such as OpenAI ChatGPT) continue to amaze us with their capabilities, B2B media companies are scrambling to institute ethical ways to use them, while also protecting their own human-created content from being used by them without permission or remuneration.

This, and the next MediaGrowth Perspectives, will outline some of the legal issues surrounding AI that Tracy Kane mentioned in a recent MediaGrowth Excellorator interview.  Tracy’s law degree, her data protection and privacy program management credentials, and her position at Endeavor Business Media give her valuable insight into the AI challenges (Part I) and AI opportunities (Part II) that face B2B media leaders going forward.  

Part I – The Challenges:

•    Current copyright law can be applied to AI infringement, but it’s a bit like “Whac-A-Mole”.  Identifying and suing violators is difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

•     AI companies claim the right to “scrape” content from the internet based on the Fair Use Doctrine which promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.

•    Because individual cases vary in facts and complexity, each must be decided in court, so law will probably not be settled in this area for years.

•    The fast pace of technological change and investment capital will continue to challenge the settling of regulatory protections.

•    The FTC is reviewing published AI policies and seeking enforcement actions against those that don’t follow their own policies.

•    Organizations are lobbying regulatory bodies and publishing “open letters” to influence public opinion and create pressure for AI companies to adjust their practices ahead of legal clarity.

•    Content producers are using public copyright notices, including scraping prohibitions on their website terms of use, putting valuable content behind gates and paywalls, and sending Cease and Desist letters or suing when they identify blatant violations, but often with unsatisfying results.

•    Technology that prevents all bots from taking content from publishers’ sites may not even serve publishers that still want Google-type indexing of their content so that potential customers can find them.  

•    Even if generative AI summarizes content and gives the publisher credit, the information may be inaccurate.  AI has been known to “hallucinate”.

The challenges are many, but with them there may come benefits for our industry as well.  In the next MediaGrowth Perspectives, we’ll focus on what Tracy sees as the opportunities that AI may be able to offer the B2B media community, even if they come with cautions and risks.

2023 © Simonsen Sales & Marketing, LLC.