Blog

Insights on licensed, attributed AI access to authoritative content.

When AI Licensing Deals Become Evidence in Court: The Mosaic Discovery Fight

A discovery order in a books-and-AI-training case, and a fresh amicus brief from AAP, News/Media Alliance and STM in the same litigation, both treat the AI licensing market as more than a backdrop to fair use. What that means for how companies should document licensing negotiations from now on.

Francois-Xavier Bioul Sep 18, 2026 8 min read

AI Act Article 50: What Breaks the Editorial Exception After Sign-Off

Article 50(4) exempts human-reviewed AI text from disclosure, but the exemption protects the version a person actually reviewed. A faithful AI translation stays inside that protection; an AI summary, rewrite or SEO pass that changes structure or meaning does not, and the published version needs its own review.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Sep 10, 2026 7 min

Permalinks, Framing and CMI: What Emmerich v. Particle Media Means for Publishers

On August 27, 2026, the Fifth Circuit held in Emmerich v. Particle Media that URLs are not categorically excluded from copyright management information under the DMCA — but most permalinks will not qualify as drafted. The same ruling replaced the server test with a transmit requirement for framing. A four-factor audit for publisher permalinks before any AI or aggregator deal.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Sep 1, 2026 12 min

AI Search Controls: What Publishers Must Record Themselves

The CMA has given publishers a world-first opt-out from Google's AI features. wikiHow's complaint against OpenAI shows what a control is worth when nobody logs it. Six objects, ranked by who actually holds the evidence — and why crawler logs come first.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Aug 31, 2026 7 min

ALA's AI Vendor Checklist Turns Procurement Into an Audit

ALA's new AI guidance gives libraries a 10-item vendor review checklist covering logging, training use, retention and audit rights. For vendors and publishers selling into libraries, most items are still answered with policy, not proof.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Aug 10, 2026 6 min

AI Disclosure Is Not an Audit Trail for STM Publishers

Scientific publishers are tightening AI disclosure policies, but disclosure alone cannot reconstruct how claims, citations, figures or review decisions were produced. STM publishers need a second layer: evidence records that make AI-assisted editorial workflows observable — starting where disclosure fails first, with citations.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Aug 7, 2026 8 min

AI Transparency Law Should Regulate Evidence That Survives Model Change

Anthropic's latest policy position highlights a larger problem for publishers and rights holders: static AI disclosure rules can become obsolete as models change. Future-proof transparency should focus less on technical architecture and more on durable, rights-aware evidence of content usage.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Aug 5, 2026 11 min

AI Training, Competing Products, and Copyright: What the Ross Appeal Means for Publishers

The Third Circuit's review of Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence is not only about whether AI training can qualify as fair use. It exposes a sharper commercial question: should content that improves an authorized product be governed like content used to build a competing substitute?

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Aug 3, 2026 7 min

AI Licensing Is Not Stuck on Copyright. It Is Stuck on the Long Tail.

Anthropic tied a $21.6bn Australian investment to copyright clarity, arguing the "long tail" of small rights holders can't be licensed one deal at a time. Canberra refused a shortcut anyway. That leaves the operational question open — and some organisations are already answering it.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Jul 31, 2026 6 min

Usage Reporting in AI Licensing Deals: Who Audits the Number?

Folha de S.Paulo settled its OpenAI lawsuit in May 2026 — no financial terms disclosed. Cloudflare's new Pay Per Use model and Microsoft's Publisher Content Marketplace both promise usage-based payment instead. Neither answers who audits the number.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Jul 28, 2026 11 min

AI Content Licensing Benchmark: Why Usage Data Decides Value

The first AI licensing deals are becoming market reference points while their terms remain confidential. The real benchmark question is not the headline price. It is who controls the usage data behind it — and whether publishers can verify the buyer’s number.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Jul 27, 2026 10 min

AI Display Deals Need Usage Evidence: The Publisher Meter

Display deals are not just another AI licensing format. They move publisher value into the AI answer itself. But when the platform controls the interface, the model and the logs, usage reporting may still leave publishers dependent on someone else’s meter.

Francois-Xavier Bioul

Jul 24, 2026 9 min