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Facebook Signs Copyright Deal with Some French Publishers

Facebook logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo taken March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Facebook logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo taken March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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Facebook Signs Copyright Deal with Some French Publishers

Facebook logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo taken March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Facebook logo is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration photo taken March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Facebook said on Thursday it had signed a preliminary copyright agreement with a French news publishers' lobby group, paving the way for it to pay for news content on its platforms in France.

The accord takes the form of a "term sheet" of a few pages, a source close to the matter said, and follows months of talks with Alliance de la presse d'information generale (APIG), a lobby representing leading dailies such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Les Echos.

The preliminary deal lists the main principles of the accord and the copyright fees due to each of its members, the same source told Reuters.

The "term sheet" will soon be followed by a framework agreement that will allow APIG's members to sign individual licenses with Facebook, the source said.

There will be two types of licenses, the source said: one for the use of news content on Facebook's main platform and one for its upcoming Facebook News service, which will curate stories from a select set of publications.

In a similar agreement reached with APIG, Alphabet's Google tied the remuneration of news content to the use of its "News Showcase" service, a condition condemned by France's competition authority.

Facebook News will be launched in France in 2022, the US company said.

The US social media group provided no detail about the content of the agreement. It has already signed a license with Le Monde over the use of the newspaper's content, the head of Le Monde group Louis Dreyfus said.

Facebook's deal with APIG follows the early adoption by France of a European Union directive that creates a so-called "neighboring right" for news content online, compelling large online platforms to open discussions with news publishers to find a recurring remuneration scheme for news.

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Amazon Offers Free Computing Power to AI Researchers, Aiming to Challenge Nvidia

(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
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Amazon Offers Free Computing Power to AI Researchers, Aiming to Challenge Nvidia

(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
(FILES) This picture taken on July 4, 2022 shows the logo of Amazon, a major online shopping company, displayed at Amazon Amagasaki Fulfillent Center in Amagasaki, Hyogo prefecture. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)

Amazon.com's cloud computing unit on Tuesday said it will offer free computing power to researchers who want to use its custom artificial intelligence chips, aiming to challenge Nvidia's popularity among those researchers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) said it will offer credits to use its cloud data centers that it values at $110 million to researchers who want to tap Trainium, its chip for developing artificial intelligence models that competes with chips from Nvidia, as well as Advanced Micro Devices and Alphabet's cloud division.

AWS said researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Berkeley, are taking part in the program. The company plans to make 40,000 of the first-generation Trainium chips available for the program, Reuters reported.

The move comes as AWS, still the largest cloud computing company by sales, has seen a sharp challenge from Microsoft as software developers look to harness new types of chips for AI work. AWS is hoping to gain attention for its own AI chips by taking a different strategy than Nvidia, said Gadi Hutt, who leads business development for the AI chips at AWS.

To program Nvidia's chips, most AI developers use what is called Cuda, Nvidia's flagship software, rather than programming the chip directly. AWS instead plans to publish documentation about the most fundamental part of its chip - what is called the instruction set architecture - and let customers program the chip directly.

Hutt said the approach is aimed at luring large customers who might want to make small tweaks that could add up to big gains when using tens of thousands of chips at a time.

"Think about folks that are using infrastructure and putting hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more" toward rented computing power, Hutt said. "They would take any opportunity possible to increase performance and reduce the cost."