Forty major media organisations, including The New York Times, The Economist and Agence France-Presse (AFP), have joined a global coalition seeking to prevent artificial intelligence companies from using journalism without permission, the group announced on Tuesday.
The coalition, known as Standards for Publisher Usage Rights (SPUR), was launched in February. Its founding membership already included major news organisations such as the BBC, the Financial Times and The Associated Press.
The latest expansion doubles the number of participating publishers. SPUR aims to help media organisations track how their content is used, identify potential copyright violations and negotiate commercial agreements with AI companies behind services such as ChatGPT and Claude.
“There is rapidly growing momentum behind our effort to build a fairer, more sustainable information economy,” David Buttle, SPUR co-founder and spokesperson, said in a statement.
Publishers argue that high-quality journalism plays a significant role in training and informing AI systems, yet media organisations lack adequate mechanisms to ensure that their work is properly recognised and compensated.
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AFP Chairman and Chief Executive Fabrice Fries said millions of people rely on AI assistants for information gathered and verified by news agency journalists.
“That original journalistic value must be recognised, credited and fairly compensated,” Fries said.
He added that tracking content was not only a matter of intellectual property rights but also an important part of maintaining public trust.
The coalition’s efforts come amid growing disputes between media companies and AI developers over the use of copyrighted material in training datasets and AI-generated responses. Publishers have increasingly called for greater transparency over how their work is accessed, attributed and monetised.
SPUR aims to establish standards and tools that help publishers trace their content and strengthen their position when negotiating with AI companies.
The expansion reflects a broader push by media organisations to secure clearer rules for the use of journalism in AI products while seeking sustainable business models as audiences increasingly turn to AI-powered services for information.
