OpenAI signs first India deals as the AI licensing map splits

OpenAI has signed its first partnership deals with India's two largest newspaper groups, with E4m reporting the Times of India deal could be worth around $5 million a year and the Indian Express Group deal around $3 million a year. The move comes as the licensing-versus-litigation map keeps splitting: OpenAI signed its first Canadian deal with local network Village Media, while Seattle Times, Newsday, Wikihow and Argentina's Editorial Perfil are the latest publishers to sue it. Elsewhere, News Corp struck a deal worth up to $50 million a year for Meta to use its content in AI products, while simultaneously suing the browser Brave for allegedly scraping and selling its content to AI companies, and CNN became the latest to sue Perplexity.

The crux

The AI licensing market is bifurcating - OpenAI is locking in emerging-market publishers at $3 million to $5 million a year while US litigation piles up - and the pricing benchmark is being set now, unevenly across geographies.

Sell-side read

Anchor your AI licensing negotiation on the published benchmarks: India at $3 million to $5 million a year and News Corp-Meta at $50 million a year; smaller and mid-tier titles that wait risk being priced out once the standard settles.

Watch

Whether the India deals reset pricing for other emerging markets, and whether US publishers' lawsuits force a higher domestic benchmark.