NYT Licenses Content to Amazon

The New York Times (NYT) has entered into a multi-year licensing agreement with Amazon, granting the tech giant access to its editorial content for AI-related applications. This marks the first instance of the NYT agreeing to a licensing arrangement focused on generative AI technology. The deal encompasses content from The New York Times, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic, and will enable Amazon to utilise summaries and excerpts within its products and services, such as Alexa.

Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon can use the licensed content to train its proprietary AI models. This collaboration aims to broaden the accessibility of The New York Times' original content across Amazon's ecosystem, including direct links to Times products. While the financial details remain undisclosed, the NYT views the deal as consistent with its principle that high-quality journalism merits appropriate compensation, whether through commercial agreements or intellectual property rights enforcement.

The agreement follows the NYT's 2023 lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, where the tech firms were accused of using millions of NYT articles to train chatbots without compensation. Amazon's stock saw a slight increase following the announcement.