ProRata.ai: A New "Ethical" Way to Track, Report & Pay for Content Used in GenAI

My Exclusive Interview With The Company About Its Novel Business Model That Pays Rights-Holders 50% of All Revenues on an Ongoing Basis

Dec 09, 2024

Welcome to the first of your final brAIn dumps of the year! This week, I feature my exclusive interview with ProRata.ai — the highly pedigreed AI company that has raised $30 million to change the generative AI game by facilitating transparency and payment to rights-holders (sharing revenues 50/50 with them). Then, onto the “AI Litigation Tracker” — updates on key generative AI infringement cases by leading IP law firm McKool Smith.

But first, it’s nearly CES time. Let’s Meet Up!

Yes, I’ll be there moderating an AI panel at Digital Hollywood on January 6th, titled “AI and the Crisis of Creative Rights: Deep Fakes, Ethics & the Law” (reach out to me if you want to meet either on January 6th or 7th - peter@creativemedia.biz).

I. The mAIn event - My Interview with ProRata.ai

ProRata.ai is a “must watch” company that sits at the center of the generative AI/content divide. It is highly pedigreed — from the mind of Bill Gross at Idealab (Gross is credited for inventing pay-per-click search a few decades ago). The company has reportedly raised $30 million to date at a valuation of $130 million. Its vision is to solve one of the most challenging and acrimonious issues at the center of generative AI — i.e., the taking and use of content for training and sourcing purposes without consent, compensation and attribution.

ProRata.ai’s proprietary tech can do three critical things across all forms of media (text, images, video): (1) identify what it calls “proportionate attribution” to relevant content sources used for generative AI training purposes, based on each source’s relative contribution to the ultimate GenAI output/display; (2) enable reporting of that attribution/contribution; and (3) thereby enable ongoing payments to the relevant rights-holders.

Oh yes, the company is going further — soon launching its own “Answer Engine” (that it will also license to others) to compete directly with Perplexity, ChatGPT and others in AI search. But unlike the others, ProRata.ai says it does it all “ethically” — training its AI models on — and then outputting/displaying — only licensed media content. As an example, the company just announced a slate of major UK media licensing deals with the likes of the Guardian and Sky News. It previously announced deals with Universal Music Group and others outside of text.

And here’s the fascinating part. The company’s business model is predicated on sharing 50/50 with rights-holders on any revenues generated on an ongoing basis by its own AI search “Answer Engine” — which is an entirely different business model than the single up-front licensing payments of the kind that have been negotiated so far between major generative AI companies and media.

For all these reasons — including my strong belief that rights-holders must give consent and get paid for the use of their content by generative AI companies both for legal and ethical reasons — ProRata.ai deserves to be featured here front and center.

Hence, this week’s exclusive interview with long-time media/tech veteran Josh Freeman, the company’s VP of Business Development. You’ll get a lot out of it.

Here it is (just click on the link below) (or watch it here on YouTube via this link).

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II. AI Litigation Tracker: Updates on Key AI Infringement Cases (by McKool Smith)

Partner Avery Williams and the team at McKool Smith (named “Plaintiff IP Firm of the Year” by The National Law Journal) lay out the facts of — and latest critical developments in — the key generative AI/media infringement cases listed below via this link to the “AI Litigation Tracker”.