By April Lanux

The key Washington lobbying group for news organizations and publishers is gearing up for legal action against a major artificial intelligence company that it believes has been egregiously copying publisher content to power its large language model.

The News Media Alliance, whose members include newspaper publisher Gannett, magazine publisher Condé Nast, Atlantic Media, Hearst, Vox Media, and others, has been putting together what its members see as a strong case of copyright infringement and violation of intellectual property laws by a notable AI player.

According to four people who participated in a strategy call around the announcement on Wednesday, the complaint will likely be filed in the coming weeks and will show large amounts of text that, the publishers claim, an AI model has essentially copied and pasted without attribution or license.

Publishing executives declined to say which AI company would be the focus on the complaint. Reached for comment, the NMA did not confirm or clarify to Semafor who the litigation is being brought against. But many members of the NMA have ongoing licensing deals with OpenAI that make it difficult to bring any direct legal action against the company over how it uses their content. Not all members of the NMA have agreed to participate in the forthcoming lawsuit.

Proponents of the move who spoke with Semafor on the condition of anonymity said that the current ambiguity of laws around copyright infringement by AI necessitates legal action by news publishers who feel that many LLMs have been trained on their work without any (or adequate) compensation. The complaint coincides with other ongoing litigation against AI companies by news organizations, most notably The New York Times’ ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, which has been seen as a potentially precedent-setting case.

The forthcoming legal complaint will be one of the biggest moves made by publishers against AI companies, some of whom have successfully convinced news media companies not to sue by offering lucrative deals to license content to train their models. Just in the last year, OpenAI has inked licensing deals with the Financial Times, Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, News Corp, The Atlantic, Vox Media, and Hearst, while Perplexity and Meta have each agreed to deals with a small number of news publishers.

Broader concerns around AI and content use have also reinvigorated the News Media Alliance, the renamed Newspaper Association of America, which hasn’t always been known as a particularly aggressive or public advocate for the members it represents. Over the last several years, the association has grown increasingly visible, as it has become one of the primary means for media organizations to push back against tech companies whose AI products siphon traffic, attention, and potentially ad dollars away from publishers.

Still, while uncertainty around AI has renewed NMA’s purpose and brought many publishers together, it has also exposed some uncomfortable tensions between them.

During Wednesday’s call, Mike Reed, the CEO and chairman of newspaper publisher Gannett, sharply criticized Axios for its partnership with OpenAI in local markets. Members of the NMA were discussing how the organization would announce the forthcoming complaint, suggesting that the exclusive be given to The New York Times, to The Wall Street Journal if the Times turned the exclusive down, and then to Axios, if both papers passed on the story. According to three participants on the call, Reed protested giving the scoop to Axios, pointing to its recent partnership with OpenAI and accusing them of “stealing” content in local markets.

In an email to Semafor, Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said that Reed’s comments had been taken out of context.

“My recollection is that Mike Reed referenced Axios in the context of a story that is being pitched,” Anton said. “Your source is giving you misinformation and it is irresponsible, quite frankly.”

By April Lanux

The only USAF base in Europe and Africa with CSAR helicopters, Aviano is the last active duty base to transition from the legacy HH-60G Pave Hawk to the recently delivered HH-60W Jolly Green II.

The 56th Rescue and Rescue Generation Squadrons at Aviano Air Base, Italy, recently flew the last mission of the active duty U.S. Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk fleet. The farewell to the helicopter was celebrated with a final four ship flight with the remaining helicopters on Dec. 18, 2024.

The only USAF base in Europe and Africa with CSAR helicopters, Aviano is the last active duty base to transition from the legacy HH-60G Pave Hawk to the recently delivered HH-60W Jolly Green II.

“Today marks the end of an iconic chapter in our Air Force history with the final active-duty HH-60G flight,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Beau Diers, 31st Fighter Wing deputy commander. “Through its tour of duty, the HH-60G provided countless lifesaving rescue operations around the globe. As we transition to the HH-60W, we remember the G’s proud history while looking forward to an even brighter future with increased combat capabilities.”

Just few days earlier, on Dec. 13, Aviano received the first new HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter, which arrived onboard a C-5 Galaxy. At least two of the new helicopters should already be at the Italian base, with the deliveries expected to be completed by October 2025.

Aviano started retiring its final five legacy Pave Hawks earlier this year, with the first, tail number A6114, sent to the boneyard on board a C-17 Globemaster III. Previously, the base started retiring older HH-60Gs in 2020 and 2021, replaced by 2022 with helicopters from units that already transitioned to the HH-60W.

One of these first helicopters, tail A6212, was retired in 2021 to become a gate guardian at Aviano. This particular Pave Hawk, said the base, has saved and assisted more than 958 lives and has flown 9,362.4 hours – the most hours of any HH-60 in the 56th Rescue Squadron’s (RQS) fleet.

The HH-60G Pave Hawk is a highly modified version of the Army Black Hawk helicopter which features an upgraded communications and navigation suite, as well as specialized mission equipment to support the helicopter’s primary mission to conduct day or night personnel recovery operations into hostile environments to recover isolated personnel.