Meta, NewsCorp in AI content licensing deal worth up to $50 million annually

Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has signed a multiyear AI content licensing deal with News Corp, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which is a part of News Corp. The social media company, which also owns messaging platform WhatsApp, will pay the Wall Street Journal's owner up to $50 million a year under the agreement.

The Meta–News Corp deal, which is set to run for at least three years, gives Meta the right to use News Corp content from the US and the UK. Meta can retrieve new information for users of its artificial-intelligence products and to train its AI models on other content, such as story archives.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson highlighted the deal on Monday during a presentation at a Morgan Stanley conference, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We have one very public horizontal deal,” he said, adding that the company is at “an advanced stage” in other negotiations and “you won’t have too long to wait” for additional details.


According to the Journal, News Corp struck a content partnership with OpenAI in 2024, a deal believed to be worth more than $250 million over five years.

Meta also began reaching out to media groups last year to secure AI content licensing agreements. It has since confirmed deals with People Inc, USA Today, CNN and Fox News, although the financial terms were not revealed by the company.

News organisations are taking different approaches in dealing with AI companies. Some are signing partnerships to ensure they are paid for use of their content, while others are turning to the courts, WSJ said.

Two News Corp subsidiaries have filed copyright infringement cases against Perplexity. At the same time, The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright concerns. It has also entered into a separate AI licensing agreement with Amazon, reportedly worth between $20 million and $25 million a year.