News Corp signed a deal with OpenAI worth $250 million over five years in May 20241. That $250 million figure still leads every other publisher's AI deal on the public record. Most publishers keep their own number private.
Four other companies have put a price on their AI deals since then. Add them up and the total comes to under $150 million a year, spread across five publishers. Courtrooms now hold far bigger numbers.
The Few Dollar Figures on the Record
OpenAI's deal with News Corp works out to $50 million a year1. Meta pays News Corp the same amount, under a three-year deal signed on March 4, 20262. Two AI companies now pay News Corp an identical number.
Amazon pays The New York Times up to $25 million a year for its articles, NYT Cooking and The Athletic3. The deal closed in May 2025. By then, the Times had already sued OpenAI and Microsoft over the same kind of use.
Dotdash Meredith's number is the clearest of all. OpenAI pays it at least $16 million a year, and the figure comes straight from IAC's own earnings calls4. Chris Halpin, IAC's chief financial officer, told investors in November 2024, "The lion's share of that would be driven by the OpenAI license."
OpenAI signed two more publishers in September 2026, Bennett, Coleman and Co. and the Indian Express Group5. Both publishers put out the Times of India and the Indian Express. Trade reporters put those deals near $5 million and $3 million a year. OpenAI left both figures unconfirmed.
News Corp's AI Deals Pay $50 Million a Year, Most Publishers Earn Far Less
Disclosed or estimated yearly value of AI licensing deals news publishers signed, 2024 to 2026
Each bar converts one publisher's AI deal to a yearly rate; the two lighter bars are trade-press estimates, unconfirmed by either company.
News Corp's and Meta's deals are reported ranges or ceilings; OpenAI's two India deals are estimates from trade reporting that OpenAI left unconfirmed.
Sources: France 24 [1]; The Decoder [2]; Awful Announcing [3]; Engadget [4]; Press Gazette [5]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| News Corp (OpenAI) | $50M |
| News Corp (Meta) | $50M |
| New York Times (Amazon) | $25M |
| Dotdash Meredith (OpenAI) | $16M |
| Times of India (OpenAI) (estimate) | $5M |
| Indian Express (OpenAI) (estimate) | $3M |
The Deals Companies Keep Private
Reach signed its own AI deal with Amazon in March 2026, covering its content inside Nova and Alexa6. The agreement pays by usage, so Reach keeps its yearly total private.
Piers North, Reach's chief executive, defends that approach. "There has to be a fair return for content creators – without our information, analysis, rich archive material and breaking news, AI models quickly lose their value," North told staff in a memo6.
The Guardian struck a similar OpenAI deal on Feb. 14, 2025, and also declined to name a price7. Every one of these deals pays the publisher's corporate accounts alone, the record shows.
Why Some Publishers Choose the Courtroom
Some publishers skip the deal entirely and sue. The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Sept. 4, 20268. Its complaint claims both companies scraped their articles, bypassed paywalls, and trained models on the result.
Alan Fisco, the Seattle Times' chief executive, called the decision hard. "This was not an easy decision. However, we feel strongly that we must defend our content – which we spend millions of dollars a year to produce – from being used without our consent or compensation," Fisco wrote to staff8.
Canada's biggest newspapers sued Anthropic on Oct. 6, 2026, in an Ontario court9. Postmedia, Torstar, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press are asking for up to $20,000 for every article Claude trained on. Anthropic's one big settlement, $1.5 billion, paid authors, a separate group from the news publishers now suing it.
USA Today Co. sued OpenAI on Oct. 9, 2026, on behalf of 19 local papers including the Courier Journal10. The suit seeks more than $250 million and asks a judge to order the destruction of any model trained on its articles. USA Today Co.'s complaint states plainly, "OpenAI's commercial success rests on large-scale copyright infringement."
The New York Times sued Brave Software on Nov. 2, 202611. Court papers say Brave scraped its journalism and resold access to Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI and Cohere. Three more papers, the Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel, filed a second suit the same day in Manhattan.
News Publishers Signed 4 AI Deals and Filed 5 Suits Since 2023
Dated AI licensing deals and copyright lawsuits involving news publishers, December 2023 to November 2026
Each pin is one deal or suit; blue pins are signed licensing deals, magenta pins are lawsuits filed against an AI company.
Sources: France 24 [1]; The Decoder [2]; Awful Announcing [3]; Press Gazette [7]; The Spokesman-Review [8]; Broadcast Dialogue [9]; LPM (Louisville Public Media) [10]; TechCrunch [11]; openclassactions.com [14]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Dec. 27, 2023 | NYT sues OpenAI |
| May 2024 | News Corp signs OpenAI |
| Feb. 14, 2025 | Guardian signs OpenAI |
| May 2025 | Amazon signs NYT deal |
| March 4, 2026 | News Corp signs Meta |
| Sept. 4, 2026 | Seattle Times sues |
| Oct. 6, 2026 | Canada sues Anthropic |
| Oct. 9, 2026 | USA Today sues OpenAI |
| Nov. 2, 2026 | NYT sues Brave |
News Corp Licenses and Sues at Once
One company signs more AI deals than any other publisher, and it sues more AI companies too. News Corp's chief executive, Robert Thomson, calls the combination his "woo and sue" approach12.
Thomson put it more sharply on Aug. 5, 2026, during News Corp's earnings call. "Without our journalists, our authors, our data, our brands and our professional expertise, users would be drowning in a slimy sea of AI slop," he said, even as he praised OpenAI and Meta as partners12.
Katie Robertson@katie_robertsonNews Corp CEO Robert Thomson says in earnings release today that the company prefers "negotiation to litigation" in regards to the generative AI threat pic.twitter.com/JsqvtxfjZO
The same call carried a second line. "Under our woo and sue approach, we are taking aggressive action against those who pilfer and profit from our work," Thomson said12.
Danielle Coffey, the News/Media Alliance's president, filed a brief on Oct. 30, 2026 backing the publishers suing OpenAI and Microsoft13. "This case is existential for the news media industry," Coffey said.
Every one of those lawsuits still awaits a verdict. The Times' own case against OpenAI, filed as case 1:23-cv-11195, has run since Dec. 27, 202314. It still sits at summary judgment, its trial date unscheduled. Licensing money is smaller, but it already sits in publishers' accounts.
What to Do
A publisher weighing this choice should price its own leverage first. News Corp's reach spans Dow Jones, Fox News and HarperCollins, which is why its number leads the field. A single paper has less to sell, so a smaller number can still be the better deal.
Check whether a deal pays a flat fee or scales with use, the way Reach's Amazon deal does. A usage deal can grow past its first number. Flat fees stay fixed for their whole term, so check the renewal date before signing.
By the numbers
- News Corp's $250 million OpenAI deal, over five years, is the largest disclosed AI licensing agreement on record1.
- Meta matches that pace with up to $50 million a year, under a deal signed March 4, 20262.
- Amazon's deal with The New York Times tops out at $25 million a year3.
- OpenAI pays Dotdash Meredith at least $16 million a year, confirmed through IAC's own filings4.
- Canadian publishers are seeking up to $20,000 per article from Anthropic in their new suit9.
- USA Today Co. is seeking more than $250 million in damages from OpenAI10.
- The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Sept. 4, 20268.
- Four more publishers, including the Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, sued Brave on Nov. 2, 202611.
What to watch
Judge Sidney Stein could rule on the Times' summary judgment motion within months14. Stein's ruling would be the first real test of whether AI training counts as fair use. A ruling against OpenAI would make every undisclosed deal look cheap. One for OpenAI would make every lawsuit look like money left on the table.
Sources
- AFP, "News Corp makes deal to let OpenAI use its content," France 24, May 23, 2024, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240522-news-corp-makes-deal-to-let-openai-use-its-content
- Matthias Bastian, "Meta signs multi-year AI deal with News Corp worth up to $50 million a year," The Decoder, Mar. 4, 2026, https://the-decoder.com/meta-signs-multi-year-ai-deal-with-news-corp-worth-up-to-50-million-a-year/
- Sean Keeley, "Amazon's AI licensing deal with New York Times, including The Athletic, garners at least $20m/year," Awful Announcing, Aug. 1, 2025, https://awfulannouncing.com/newspapers/new-york-times-amazon-ai-content-athletic-20-million-year.html
- Lawrence Bonk, "OpenAI will pay DotDash Meredith at least $16 million per year to license its content," Engadget, Nov. 19, 2024, https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-will-pay-dotdash-meredith-at-least-16-million-per-year-to-license-its-content-191756662.html
- Bron Maher, "Who's suing AI and who's signing latest: US newspapers sue Brave Software and Canadian publishers sue Anthropic," Press Gazette, Nov. 2, 2026, https://pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/news-publisher-ai-deals-lawsuits-openai-google/
- Charlotte Tobitt, "Reach CEO Piers North says AI approach 'mixture of courtship and courts'," Press Gazette, Mar. 4, 2026, https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/reach-ceo-piers-north-says-ai-approach-mixture-of-courtship-and-courts/
- Dominic Ponsford, "Guardian OpenAI deal: Publisher latest to sign licensing agreement," Press Gazette, Feb. 14, 2025, https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/guardian-openai/
- Alex Halverson, "The Seattle Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over copyright infringement," The Spokesman-Review, Sept. 4, 2026, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/sep/04/the-seattle-times-sues-openai-microsoft-over-copyr/
- Connie Thiessen, "Canadian news publishers sue Anthropic over AI copyright infringement," Broadcast Dialogue, Oct. 14, 2026, https://broadcastdialogue.com/canadian-news-publishers-sue-anthropic-over-ai-copyright-infringement/
- Sylvia Goodman and Joe Sonka, "USA Today network, including Courier Journal, sue OpenAI," LPM (Louisville Public Media), Oct. 9, 2026, https://www.lpm.org/news/2026-10-09/usa-today-network-including-courier-journal-sue-openai
- Rebecca Bellan, "New York Times and other outlets sue web browser Brave over alleged content scraping," TechCrunch, Nov. 2, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/new-york-times-and-other-outlets-sue-web-browser-brave-over-alleged-content-scraping/
- News Corp, "News Corp Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2026 Results," Aug. 5, 2026, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001564708/000156470826000171/release-q4fy2026.htm
- News/Media Alliance, "News/Media Alliance Files Amicus Brief in News Publisher Suits Against OpenAI and Microsoft," Oct. 30, 2026, https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/nma-files-amicus-brief-in-openai-mdl/
- openclassactions.com, "New York Times vs. OpenAI and Microsoft: Where the Lawsuit Stands," Oct. 27, 2026, https://openclassactions.com/news/new-york-times-openai-microsoft-copyright-lawsuit.php
