News Corp calls on AI firms to pay for content

The speech and the ask

Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, took the stage at Macquarie University's Future Campus HE Fest on 24 September 2026 with a title that made his position plain: "Truth at risk in AI fight."^[1] Miller's argument was that unchecked AI systems dilute facts and erode public trust in news institutions. Future Campus convenor Tim Winkler organised the event and gave him the platform.

Miller framed the occasion in his own words. "When Tim Winkler invited me to speak at Future Campus HE Fest 2026 back in June, he posed a defining question: 'Has AI created a post-truth world, and what are we going to do about it?'"^[1] His answer was a call for government action modelled on Australia's existing framework for platform payments to publishers.

What he proposed, and when he proposed it

In a meeting with Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones on 27 April 2026, Miller proposed that suppliers of AI engines should pay content creators in the same manner digital platforms pay under the News Media Bargaining Code, Australia's 2021 law that compels Google and Meta to strike commercial deals with publishers or face mandatory arbitration.^[2] The Macquarie speech, delivered five months later, carried the same ask into public view with the copyright review now formally approaching.

Miller told the Macquarie audience that News Corp Australia will continue backing real journalism, holding the line on intellectual property, and partnering with those who respect it.^[1] The phrase "those who respect it" does some heavy lifting given where News Corp's own balance sheet sits on this question.

The dual strategy: licensing one, suing another

News Corp signed a multi-year global content licensing agreement with OpenAI on 22 May 2024, granting OpenAI permission to display News Corp masthead content inside AI responses.^[3] The company's investor release confirmed the arrangement; financial terms were not disclosed. That deal sits alongside a separate legal campaign: in a Form 8-K filing dated 14 February 2025, News Corp disclosed it was pursuing legal discovery against Perplexity AI over unlicensed use of its content.^[4]

OpenAI paid. Perplexity, according to News Corp's legal filings, did not. Miller's Bargaining Code proposal would, if adopted, remove the need to chase individual firms through the courts by creating a statutory obligation to negotiate.

What the filings say

In its annual filing for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2025, lodged with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on 7 August 2025, News Corp identified "new licensing and partnership arrangements with large technology companies and AI-focused platforms" as key growth drivers.^[5] News Corp is, in short, booking revenue from AI licensing while publicly arguing that AI licensing needs to be mandated for everyone.

That is a coherent position for a company with the reach and legal resources to cut its own deals. Dozens of Australian publishers lack the bargaining power to negotiate directly with a platform running hundreds of millions of queries a day. If the copyright review produces a code extension, those publishers benefit. If it does not, News Corp's bilateral deal with OpenAI becomes a competitive advantage rather than a sector-wide floor.

The copyright review

Australia's copyright review gives Miller's campaign its clearest opening yet. The News Media Bargaining Code, introduced in 2021, produced payment deals across the industry by threatening Google and Meta with mandatory arbitration. Extending that logic to AI engine providers would apply the mechanism to a technology that did not exist at commercial scale when the original code was drafted.

News Corp owns Australia's largest newspaper network, and no publisher in the country stands to gain more from that expansion. The federal government has not announced a timetable for the review's findings.