(26 Feb 2025) As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become increasingly integrated into scholarly research and knowledge dissemination, publishers face a critical challenge: how to best integrate their content into this new ecosystem. Currently, an increasing number of publishers are collaborating with AI system suppliers to license their content for large language model training, small model development, and retrieval-augmented generation applications. Many of the largest publishers have announced licensing arrangements with the largest model developers and likely many, many more are under the radar at other publishers as well. Although few can discuss the process, it is easy to imagine the difficulties some of the deals are facing behind the scenes. With all these discussions happening behind closed doors and often under the cloak of non-disclosure agreements, there might be an opportunity for transparency to support the entire publishing industry to move toward more efficient and effective outcomes. The absence of a standardized licensing framework, similar to what has been in place for licensing to the library community, is probably leading to inefficiencies and legal complexities.
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), shares his view on AI licensing models. Read more here.
