The Brief – Wednesday 18 March – Labour abandons ‘opt-out’ copyright policy, STV earnings & boost for local news

‼️ Labour has abandoned plans to allow AI companies to use copyrighted works without permission following backlash from the creative industries. The technology and culture secretary are expected to ditch an “opt-out” policy which would have allowed AI companies to train software on copyrighted works unless the rights holder removed their consent. (The Times)

💰 STV reported group revenue declined 6% year on year to £176.9m, with total advertising revenue down 10% to £89.3m, driven by a sharp decline in the national linear market. Studios revenue was down just 1% in comparison, to £83m. (STV)

⚠️ According to police figures, four in 10 online child abuse offences occurred on Snapchat. Children are thus five times more likely to be targeted by sex offenders on the app than any other social media service. However, due to end-to-end encryption, the scale of the issue on Meta platforms is likely severely undercounted, according to the NSPCC. (The Telegraph)

📰 The UK Government will pay up to £12m to local media outlets over next two years to support business model change as part of the Local Media Strategy. The fund aims to “guarantee the long-term sustainability of local journalism” as part of wider plans to boost social cohesion in the UK and to help these publishers transition to “online-focused business models.” (Press Gazette)

🤖 Organisations across the world are racing to develop a universally recognised label for “human-made” products and services as part of the growing backlash against AI use. Labels such as “Proudly Human,” “Human-made,” “No A.I,” and “AI-free” are appearing across films, marketing, books and websites. (BBC)

📺 Sky Media has announced advertisers can now access premium video on demand (VOD) inventory programmatically through Google Display and Video 360 (DV360). Following a successful pilot advertisers will have programmatic access to broadcast quality VOD across its own platforms and channels and inventory from its Media Partners. Discovery, through DV360. (Sky Media)

⏳Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is facing a lawsuit from three teenagers in California who say they company facilitated child pornography by allowing its chatbot Grok to create sexually explicit images of them. (BBC)