Paul Deegan: 'AI for All' must protect Canadian journalism copyright

Last week, the federal government unveiled the highly anticipated Canada's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All.

Ann O'Leary, the vice-president of global policy at OpenAI — a company that is being sued by several Canadian news publishers — had a positive reaction to the new AI strategy. She stated, "We are proud to be a partner to Canada's AI ecosystem and are committed to helping ensure AI is useful and worthy of people's trust."

Indeed, the 50-page document has much to be enthusiastic about. Canada's news publishers applaud the federal government's focus on supporting globally competitive Canadian champions and building sovereign Canadian AI foundations in computations, data, talent and infrastructure.

At the same time, we believe the underpinnings and use of artificial intelligence must be responsible, ethical, and foster trust through standards and safeguards that reflect the values of Canadians. To that end, several leading Canadian news publishers and the News Media Canada have joined the SPUR (Standards for Publisher Usage Rights) Coalition, becoming part of a growing international alliance of news publishers working to shape the technical and commercial environment in which intellectual property owners can control and monetize the use of their content by generative AI applications.

A few days before Canada unveiled its AI strategy from Toronto, A.G. Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of The New York Times, delivered an eloquent speech, entitled AI, Journalism and the Uncertain Future of the Public Square, to the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille.

He stated, "Their hijacking of the public square is made possible by the original sin that animates their AI products — a brazen theft of intellectual property that has occurred at an unprecedented scale. Tech giants strip-mine news websites without permission or compensation. They repackage these stolen goods as their own, siphoning off the audiences and revenue that otherwise would go to the news organizations that created this work. And this happens not just once during the training process, but countless times every single day."

According to a survey conducted by Totum Research for News Media Canada, 71 per cent of Canadians agree the government of Canada should take action to prevent artificial intelligence companies from taking and repackaging news content without permission or providing compensation.

Canada's news publishers are concerned that the word copyright did not appear even once in the federal government's new AI strategy. News is a foundational input for the output of the AI companies, allowing them to deliver credible, accurate information. But there should be no crawling without prior consent, attribution and fair remuneration — the user needs to pay the creator, protecting Canadian cultural sovereignty, voices and stories.

We acknowledge that the new strategy is just the first step in the government's developing AI policy framework. We look forward to collaborating to establish clear guidelines that will safeguard the creative economy and protect its IP.

We were pleased to hear Taleeb Noormohamed, parliamentary secretary to AI Minister Evan Solomon, state, "We've heard them loud and clear, and we know that that's something that has to be addressed. They are not going to be forgotten through this process, certainly not … Nobody is going to undervalue or understate how important this is … We get it."

As the government develops policies we hope will offer protections for journalistic content and mitigate the societal risks of the theft of IP by the AI companies, let's hope they are guided by the clarion call from A.G. Sulzberger. He warned, "I fear we are careening toward a future with fewer and fewer journalists to do the expensive, difficult work of original reporting — going to places, talking to people, digging up information, covering important issues and events, providing context and analysis, investigating the powerful. A future where a crucial wellspring of a healthy society and a stable democracy — the truth, understanding and accountability provided by original journalism — continues to dry up."

As Louise Arbour put it in her installation speech as Governor General, "We must continue to protect the public space in which our national debates take place: from schools and universities to the media, political parties, unions and civil society organizations. … With instant access to vast amounts of information, it is very tempting to pay little attention to the reliability of sources. The lines between knowledge and belief, between truth and falsehood, between facts and assumptions, are increasingly blurred. AI could be threatening not only the way we live and work, but also the control we exercise over our own destiny."

Fact-based, fact-checked trusted journalistic content is vital to a healthy democracy. We are asking the government to lead boldly, and there are a number of concrete steps they can take. First, clearly and unequivocally state that there will be no text and data-mining exception. Second, use the power of the federal procurement purse to ensure these companies stop stealing creator content through robust supplier commitments. Third, align with the U.K. competition authority's approach, which gives publishers an opt-out to control how news content is surfaced in Google's AI answers, and have the minister of industry direct the competition bureau to conduct a market study into Google's AI/search crawler.

In the face of misinformation and disinformation and threats to Canadian sovereignty, identity, and unity, there is an urgent need to protect and control Canadian trusted, verified intellectual property and to keep its value in Canada for Canadians.

Paul Deegan is president and chief executive officer of News Media Canada and vice chair of the Committee of Directors of WAN-IFRA.

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