Mediavine launches petition demanding AI copyright protections

Mediavine launched a public petition on August 7, 2025, demanding immediate action from the U.S. Copyright Office to protect content creators from generative AI exploitation. The ad management company, representing over 17,000 independent digital publishers, rejected the Copyright Office's recent recommendation for a "wait and see" approach to AI regulation.

"When it comes to AI crawling sites without permission, attribution, or compensation, the market won't fix this problem on its own. The time to act is now," Mediavine stated in a social media campaign accompanying the petition launch.

The company positioned itself against the Copyright Office's current stance following a recently published report that found training AI models on copyrighted works without consent erodes the value of original work and challenges the foundation of copyright law. Despite these findings, the Copyright Office recommended market self-regulation rather than immediate regulatory intervention.

Company escalates advocacy campaign

"We support the U.S. Copyright Office's position: generative AI erodes creators' rights. But we aren't sitting back and waiting to see what happens," Mediavine posted on August 7. The company outlined comprehensive advocacy activities extending beyond the petition to industry-wide initiatives.

"We are actively engaging in industry-wide advocacy to protect creator interests, including: Engaging with the U.S. Copyright Office, FTC, & Congress; Filing public comments that center on creator rights; Working within industry groups like IAB, ANA, & Prebid; Advocating for collective licensing models that work for creators; Keeping creators in the AI value chain," the company detailed in its social media announcement.

This public campaign followed Mediavine's participation in a coalition meeting during the week ending July 30, 2025, where over 80 media executives gathered in New York under the IAB Tech Lab banner. Mediavine Chief Revenue Officer Amanda Martin joined representatives from Google, Meta, and numerous industry leaders to address systematic content extraction by AI platforms.

Petition outlines specific demands

The Change.org petition specifically challenges the Copyright Office's recommendation for delayed action. According to the petition, "In a recently published report, the U.S. Copyright Office found that training AI models on copyrighted works without consent erodes the value of original work and challenges the foundation of copyright law. However, the Copyright Office has recommended a 'wait and see' approach to hold off on exploring regulation and to let the market regulate itself."

"At Mediavine, we represent over 17,000 independent digital publishers and believe there is no time for a 'wait and see' approach when the stakes are this high," the petition states. The document characterizes current practices as systematic exploitation: "Unauthorized use of copyright-protected material to train AI models and the increasing prevalence of AI-generated overlays that displace source content without attribution threaten to eliminate the very voices whose material AI uses."

The petition outlines five specific policy positions for the Copyright Office to consider. AI-generated answers that pull from creator content must clearly credit, compensate, and link to the original source. Training AI on copyright-protected content without explicit permission should not be considered fair use, as this practice disrespects intellectual property rights and undermines economic value.

Transparency mandates should require platforms and model developers to disclose training data sources, including whether copyright-protected content was used. Licensing frameworks must allow content creators to opt in and receive payment for their work. The petition supports exploration of extended licensing, opt-in registries, or new models ensuring creators benefit from AI systems using their content.

Company frames urgency around industry disruption

"AI is an enhancement, not a substitution, for human creativity. Our focus continues to be on how creators are supported, not replaced, by AI," Mediavine stated, outlining its position on AI's role in content creation. The company detailed specific tools and approaches: "Tools to enhance your work, not replace it; Smarter content optimization; Streamlined publishing workflows; AI-powered time-savers that keep you in control."

"The stakes are high. AI assistants. Walled gardens. Changing search behavior. We're at a critical inflection point in how content is discovered and valued. If creators lose visibility now, they lose viability long-term," the company warned in its August 7 announcement.

Mediavine emphasized its responsibility during industry transitions: "We believe it's our responsibility to support creators during times of industry disruption." The company's commitment extends beyond advocacy to technical solutions and policy engagement: "Advocate for creators at the highest levels of policy and industry; Build tools that let creators use AI on their terms; Lead the way on fair, scalable licensing for the AI era; Act now—because creators can't afford the cost of delay."

Platform outlines regulatory demands

The campaign specifically targets industry stakeholders and regulatory bodies with concrete demands. "We urge the industry, regulators, and platforms to: Enact Transparency Mandates by requiring clear disclosures of training data, attribution, and AI use; Establish Creator-Centric Licensing by building fair licensing before AI dominance becomes irreversible," Mediavine stated.

Additional demands include protecting discovery equity by safeguarding diverse voices in AI search and recommender systems. The company explicitly challenged fair use interpretations: "Enforce Copyright Protections - Training on copyrighted content is NOT fair use."

The petition encourages public participation through multiple channels. "Don't wait for action. Join us in protecting the future of web content by signing our change.org petition," Mediavine stated, providing direct links to the petition and additional resources including a Digiday article and dedicated landing page.

Historical context of content quality enforcement

This advocacy campaign builds on Mediavine's established position against AI content misuse. PPC Land reported in September 2024 that Mediavine terminated multiple publisher accounts over AI-generated content concerns, demonstrating the company's commitment to content quality standards.

The company's policy explicitly states it "does not monetize low-quality, mass-produced, unedited or undisclosed AI content that is scraped from other websites." Mediavine also refuses to "tolerate publishers using AI to create untested recipes or any other form of low-quality content that devalues the contributions of legitimate content creators."

According to a March 7, 2024 statement, Mediavine positioned itself against content that undermines creator value. The company emphasized its role as an advocate for quality content and preservation of the open web, maintaining these standards for over 20 years of operation.

Industry resistance data supports campaign

Research data supports Mediavine's position on growing publisher resistance to AI crawlers. Over 35% of top websites now block OpenAI's GPTBot, according to industry tracking. HUMAN Security documented 107% year-over-year increases in scraping attacks, highlighting the scale of unauthorized content extraction.

Major media publishers including The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, USA Today, Reuters, The Washington Post, NPR, CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, and CNBC have implemented blocks against AI crawlers. This widespread resistance indicates industry-wide concern about AI companies potentially replicating content without compensation.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warned that zero-click searches threaten content creator revenues, with OpenAI's systems now scraping approximately 1,500 pages for every visitor sent to original sources. Google's ratio has deteriorated from 6:1 to 15:1 over six months, indicating accelerating content extraction without proportional traffic attribution.

Technical solutions complement advocacy

The petition campaign accompanies technical initiatives addressing AI content access. Cloudflare launched its pay-per-crawl service on July 1, 2025, allowing content creators to charge AI crawlers for access through HTTP 402 Payment Required responses.

Mediavine expressed support for Cloudflare's approach, noting their partnership through BigScoots hosting plans. "Cloudflare's extensive reach–powering nearly 20% of the internet–suggests that this feature is likely to be adopted as a standard by numerous AI companies almost immediately," the company stated.

The company's partnership with BigScoots provides Mediavine publishers with Cloudflare Enterprise CDN integration, making implementation of pay-per-crawl features accessible to their network of more than 18,000 publishers.

Economic implications drive urgency

The financial impact on publishers has become central to Mediavine's advocacy efforts. According to the company, "Attribution isn't optional. It's table stakes. Licensing must work for independent publishers, not just the top 1%. Scraping without permission is exploitation."

Current AI training practices effectively transfer economic value from content creators to AI platform operators. Publishers invest resources in content creation while AI companies monetize that content through their platforms without providing compensation or attribution.

PPC Land's analysis shows programmatic advertising investment growing 72% in 2025, highlighting continued importance of digital advertising revenue for publishers. However, Google Network advertising revenue declined 1% as AI features reduce publisher traffic, indicating pressure on traditional monetization models.

The petition framework would establish new revenue streams for publishers while potentially increasing costs for AI companies. This economic rebalancing could affect AI development costs and pricing structures across the industry.

Coalition building extends influence

The August 7 petition launch follows broader coalition building efforts. During the July 30 IAB Tech Lab meeting, Martin joined Google and Meta representatives alongside 80+ media executives to develop industry standards addressing AI content access.

"Industry bodies cannot dictate commercial decisions by its members, but it can create buy-in and adoption of the standard, or the line in the sand that we're all going to act within," Martin stated regarding the collaborative approach.

The gathering aimed to develop a comprehensive LLM Content Ingest API that would fundamentally alter how AI platforms access publisher content. The proposed technical framework centers on four core principles: control, consent, credit, and compensation.

Implementation challenges remain

Establishing industry-wide standards faces several technical and commercial hurdles. Different AI platforms use varying approaches to content access and processing, making universal implementation complex.

Enforcement mechanisms remain unclear. While technical standards can specify requirements, ensuring compliance across global AI platforms requires international cooperation and potentially regulatory involvement.

The petition specifically addresses these challenges by demanding government intervention rather than relying solely on industry self-regulation. Cross-border legal frameworks add complexity, as AI platforms and publishers operate across multiple jurisdictions with different intellectual property and contract laws.

Timeline

• March 6, 2024: Mediavine terminated multiple publisher accounts over AI-generated content
• March 7, 2024:Mediavine releases statement on AI content policy and creator protection
• July 1, 2025: Cloudflare launches pay-per-crawl service for AI content access
• July 30, 2025: 80+ media executives meet in New York under IAB Tech Lab banner
• August 7, 2025: Mediavine launches Change.org petition and social media campaign demanding Copyright Office action
• Ongoing: Growing publisher resistance with 35% of top websites blocking AI crawlers

Key Terms Explained

AI content scraping: The automated process of extracting text, images, and other data from websites without explicit permission from content owners. AI companies use sophisticated crawling systems to gather training data from across the internet, often ignoring publisher guidance like robots.txt files that indicate crawling preferences. This practice has become central to the dispute between publishers and AI companies, as it allows AI platforms to use copyrighted material without compensation while potentially reducing traffic to original sources.

Copyright Office: The United States Copyright Office, a federal agency that administers copyright law and provides policy guidance on intellectual property matters. The agency recently published a report finding that training AI models on copyrighted works without consent erodes the value of original work, but recommended a "wait and see" approach rather than immediate regulatory intervention. Mediavine's petition specifically challenges this position, arguing that immediate action is necessary to protect content creators.

Content creators: Individual publishers, bloggers, journalists, and media companies that produce original digital content including articles, videos, images, and other materials. This broad category encompasses everyone from individual website owners to major news organizations who rely on advertising revenue, subscriptions, and content licensing for sustainability. The petition positions these creators as the primary victims of unauthorized AI content usage.

Fair use: A legal doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without permission under specific circumstances such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, or research. The petition explicitly argues that training AI models on copyrighted content should not be considered fair use, challenging a common defense used by AI companies. This legal concept has become a battleground in determining whether AI training practices violate copyright law.

Industry advocacy: Organized efforts by companies and trade organizations to influence policy and regulatory decisions through lobbying, public comments, coalition building, and stakeholder engagement. Mediavine outlined comprehensive advocacy activities including engagement with federal agencies, filing public comments centered on creator rights, and working within industry groups like IAB, ANA, and Prebid to advance publisher interests in AI policy discussions.

Licensing frameworks: Formal systems that would allow content creators to grant permission for AI companies to use their content while receiving compensation and maintaining attribution. The petition calls for development of opt-in registries and collective licensing models that ensure creators benefit economically from AI systems trained on their work. These frameworks would replace the current practice of unauthorized content extraction with formal business relationships.

Mediavine: A full-service ad management company and monetization partner that represents over 17,000 independent digital publishers. Founded over 20 years ago, the company positions itself as an advocate for quality content and preservation of the open web. Mediavine has taken increasingly aggressive action against AI content misuse, including terminating publisher accounts for using low-quality AI-generated content and launching advocacy campaigns for creator rights.

Publisher compensation: Financial arrangements that would provide content creators with payment when AI companies use their material for model training or generating responses. This concept addresses the current practice where AI platforms extract economic value from publisher content without sharing revenue generated through AI applications and services. The petition argues that compensation represents a fundamental requirement rather than an optional courtesy.

Training data: The massive collections of text, images, and other content used to teach AI models how to generate human-like responses. AI companies typically gather this data through web scraping without explicit permission from content owners. The petition demands transparency about training data sources and argues that using copyrighted content for this purpose without consent violates intellectual property rights and undermines the economic value of original work.

Transparency mandates: Proposed regulatory requirements that would force AI companies to disclose what content they use for training, how they attribute sources, and when AI-generated responses incorporate copyrighted material. The petition calls for clear disclosures of training data sources, including whether copyright-protected content was used. This represents a shift from current practices where AI companies often provide limited information about their data sources and training methodologies.

Summary

Who: Mediavine, representing over 17,000 independent digital publishers, targeting the U.S. Copyright Office, FTC, Congress, and industry stakeholders

What: Change.org petition demanding immediate regulatory action against AI content scraping, rejecting Copyright Office's "wait and see" approach

When: Petition launched August 7, 2025, following July 30 industry coalition meeting and ongoing advocacy efforts

Where: Public petition on Change.org platform, social media campaign, and policy engagement with federal agencies and industry groups

Why: Publishers face systematic content exploitation by AI companies without permission, attribution, or compensation, threatening long-term viability of content creation