Seven CEO Jeff Howard slams AI firms for ‘theft’ of content
The Seven West Media boss condemned AI firms for using content without pay, urging government action amid a wider industry backlash.
Seven West Media chief executive Jeff Howard has hit out at generative AI companies suspected of ingesting the work of Australian media organisations without compensation, urging the government to step in.
The Kerry Stokes-controlled company’s publishing assets, 7news.com.au and The West Australian, were among several outlets named in a whistleblower leak alleging Meta had scraped “roughly 100,000” sites to train its AI models.
Meta dismissed the list as “bogus” but stopped short of ruling out to Capital Brief the possibility its models had scraped Australian news sites. The company has pointed to “fair use” exemptions under US law to defend the training of its models.
Speaking after Seven reported a 62% full-year profit slide on Tuesday, Howard called the justification “ridiculous” and said the crawling activity of the world’s largest AI companies amounted to “theft”.
