The SPUR Coalition, of which the Independent Media Association is a member, has welcomed more than 40 new members, including The New York Times, Agence France-Presse (AFP), The Atlantic, The Economist and The Observer.
The latest expansion, announced on 13 October, takes the publisher-led coalition to more than 80 members across over 20 countries, just eight months after it launched in February. New members also include major industry bodies such as Brazil’s National Association of Newspapers (ANJ), Mexico’s Alianza de Medios and Argentina’s ADEPA.
Closer to home, UK newcomers include ITV News, the News Media Association, Which?, Money Saving Expert, and independent and community publishers such as Blog Preston and the Independent Community News Network. They join SPUR’s founding members, among them the BBC, the Financial Times, Guardian Media Group, Sky News, Telegraph Media Group and the Associated Press.
SPUR aims to create a fair market for the use of news content in AI systems, setting clear rules of engagement between publishers and tech platforms and making licensing the only viable route for AI models to use copyrighted journalism.
Rebecca Grossman-Cohen of The New York Times said that “intellectual property protection and technological advancement can and must co-exist”, adding that the paper was proud to help develop standards for copyrighted content that are not set unilaterally by tech platforms.
SPUR co-founder and spokesperson David Buttle said publishers worldwide needed to act collectively to protect journalism, warning that news organisations currently have no way of ensuring they are fairly paid for work that underpins AI models.
The announcement follows the publication of SPUR’s Content Telemetry Standard, which sets out a common process for AI developers to record how they use media content and report that usage back to publishers. The coalition says it is now working with industry partners on implementation and building tools to make it easier for AI companies to adopt the standard.
For Independent Media Association members, a broader coalition means the standards being developed through SPUR are more likely to become the norm, giving independent publishers a stronger collective voice in how AI companies access and pay for journalism
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