Meta May Use Sweeping New Commercial TOS to Avoid Millions In AI Licensing Fees

Meta has announced sweeping new commercial terms set to take effect on October 30, sparking concerns that the changes could grant the company extensive permission to scrape content from websites linked to business accounts for AI training purposes. Legal analysts express worry that the modifications might jeopardize lucrative AI licensing agreements for news publishers, with no explicit opt-out for businesses accepting the terms.

According to Ars Technica, the update will impact all business accounts, but it is particularly concerning for news publishers who could be owed millions in licensing fees to continually access their articles for AI training. Currently, news organizations are contesting a dispute with OpenAI over whether such training without proper licensing constitutes fair use, and Meta's terms potentially risk granting it extensive permissions, irrespective of the outcome.

Despite the absence of explicit mention of AI, it can be inferred from the use of the term "train" and references to automated scraping and crawling. A Meta spokesperson stated that the new terms do not intend to disregard robots.txt instructions that restrict scraping on news sites. The company still permits news organizations to opt out of scraping and provides guidance on how to block crawling.

However, should courts rule in favor of AI training non-news articles as fair use, news organizations are apprehensive that Meta's stance might shift, potentially enabling the company to access content without adhering to robots.txt instructions.