Media start blocking Internet Archive to prevent AI accessing their articles

Publications have begun restricting Internet Archive access to their materials due to concerns that artificial intelligence companies could use the web service to obtain content.

One such publication is The Guardian. The editorial staff notes that AI companies are actively seeking accessible and structured databases to train their models, and the Internet Archive API, according to a spokesperson, provides everything necessary.

The New York Times has taken a similar stance. The newspaper claims that the Internet Archive is effectively granting AI companies access to all of its content without the copyright holder’s permission.

The Financial Times and the social media platform Reddit have also imposed restrictions on access to their content. Some sites, however, are requiring AI companies to pay for the use of their materials. Wikipedia, for example, signed agreements with Microsoft, Amazon, Perplexity, and Meta this year.

Several foreign publications are simultaneously filing lawsuits against AI companies for using their website content to train models without consent. Investigative journalists at The New York Times, for example, are accusing these companies of copyright infringement. The owners of Rolling Stone and Variety also previously filed a lawsuit against Google over its “AI Review” feature.