Court Documents Show OpenAI and Microsoft Knew About AI's Publisher "Doom Loop"
Unredacted court filings show OpenAI and Microsoft openly discussing the "doom loop" AI creates for publishers. Plus: Forrester predicts free ad-supported streaming tiers from three major services.
Updated
The brief
- Unredacted court documents show OpenAI and Microsoft internally discussing the 'doom loop' AI creates for publishers; a Microsoft document admits the tech 'threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers.'
- Microsoft's Brent Hecht called AI 'hoovering up' journalists' work potentially 'the largest theft of labor in human history'; OpenAI's Greg Brockman replied 'ah nice' when shown how the tech bypasses publisher paywalls.
- Forrester predicts three major streaming services will launch free ad-supported tiers, naming Disney+ as most likely and noting Netflix hinted at a fully ad-supported tier during its Q2 earnings call.
Generative AI critics have long argued the technology cannibalizes its own sources: scrape enough publisher content, and eventually there won't be any publishers left to scrape. Newly unredacted court documents show OpenAI and Microsoft understood that risk from the start.
The documents, filed as part of a lawsuit brought by news publishers, include internal communications in which both companies openly discuss the "doom loop" AI creates for publishers — and for their own technology. The Orlando Sentinel, one of the news organizations suing OpenAI and Microsoft, compiled some of the most damaging quotes.
"It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created," one unredacted Microsoft document reads.
Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht went further in another document, saying AI models "hoovering up" the work of millions of journalists could be seen as "the largest theft of labor in human history."
OpenAI President Greg Brockman responded "ah nice" when shown how the company's technology can bypass publisher paywalls to scrape content, according to the filings.
Microsoft claims Hecht was hired to be an AI contrarian and does not represent the company's actual beliefs. OpenAI declined to comment to the Sentinel.
Steven Lieberman, an attorney representing the NY Daily News in the lawsuit, argues the documents prove Microsoft and OpenAI are knowingly committing theft and harming publishers — rather than operating in good faith under the protection of the fair use doctrine. Jason Koebler of 404 Media put it more bluntly: the documents are "the most They Admit It [thing] I have ever seen in my life."
Fortnite's Brand-Suitability Problem
A few weeks ago, we covered Ikea's unusual marketing integration with "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim." Think of "Fortnite" as the anti-"Skyrim" — a game where the cognitive dissonance of brand collaborations can hurt rather than help.
The multiplayer shooter is now awash with licensed crossover skins and cosmetics. Peter Griffin, John Wick, SpongeBob SquarePants and Lady Gaga all appear in the game, shooting machine guns and performing TikTok dances over one another's corpses.
Sam Greszes, writing for Aftermath, points out that these crossovers often conflict with the brand-suitability guidelines of each individual IP. That's why Fortnite's "Sonic the Hedgehog" collaboration includes robot versions of the characters — Sega wanted to maintain its position that the "real" Sonic must never hold a gun.
The free-for-all context doesn't mean nobody gets in trouble when licensing goes wrong. Last year, developer Epic Games pulled a "Peacemaker" dance emote after a major plot twist in the HBO series linked the dance move to Nazi imagery.
Forrester: Free Ad-Supported Tiers Are Coming
Streaming with ads — but at what cost? Research firm Forrester predicts three major streaming services will ditch the paid-subscription-only model and launch free ad-supported tiers.
Most streamers already offer a mix of ad-free and ad-supported plans, but many still require paid subscriptions. Cost-conscious consumers will only pay so much to sit through commercial breaks. At the same time, streamers need ad revenue to keep average revenue per user growing — and to stay in Wall Street's good graces.
Forrester names Disney+ as the most likely to roll out a free viewing tier, mainly because the company explored the possibility over the summer. Netflix, famously ad-free until 2022, also hinted at launching a completely ad-supported tier during its Q2 earnings call earlier this year.
Streaming platforms have pushed aggressive subscription price hikes lately. But the fact that most are raising prices on ad-free tiers more sharply than on ad-supported plans suggests they know they're close to pushing consumers over the edge.
In Brief
- English football club Oxford United apologized for an ad campaign featuring a "United 93" jersey — the call sign of one of the planes hijacked on 9/11. [BBC]
- Meta's new personal AI agent requires a lot of user trust, but many of Meta's users don't trust the company that much. [WSJ]
- US-based AI companies are slowing development due to global safety concerns. Will Chinese AI companies follow? [The Information]
- Futurism takes a look inside Brown Brothers Media, a startup that buys news sites and turns them into slop-filled content farms.
People Moves
- Karandeep Anand joins Disney as its first-ever CTO. He was previously CEO of Character.AI, the chatbot service Disney accused of copyright infringement in 2025. [Deadline]
- Disney also named Adam Smith chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment. [Adweek]
- BionicVO LLC, a company that replicates actors' voices using AI, is partnering with Yaman Media Group LLC. Yaman founder Yaman Coskun becomes BionicVO's director of strategic partnerships. [Inside Radio]
- Jay Wolff joins Hologram Media Network as chief growth officer. [release]
Based on AdExchanger; apnews.com
Filed under openai, microsoft, ai-publishing, streaming, fortnite
Priya Raman
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Correspondent covering industry trends and analytics at Marketing Herald.