A publishers’ trade association— which includes the New York Times, the Washington Post, Disney, and NBCUniversal—is reminding members that AI tools built on their archives could break copyright laws.

According to a draft of guidelines from Digital Content Next that was shared with Marketing Brew, “copyright laws protect content creators from the unlicensed use of their content” and “use of copyrighted works in AI systems are subject to analysis under copyright and fair use law.” Additionally, it says that “most of the use of publishers’ original content by AI systems for both training and output purposes would likely be found to go far beyond the scope of fair use as set forth in the Copyright Act and established case law.”

The document, which hasn’t been shared with members yet, also notes that “use of original content by [generative AI] systems for training, surfacing, or synthesizing is not authorized by most publishers’ terms and conditions, or contemplated by existing agreements.”

Titled “Principles for Development and Governance of Generative AI,” the draft was written with input from members with the goal of giving publishers a tool to help aid discussions with generative AI companies, regulators, and internal conversations, according to Jason Kint, the trade group’s CEO.

While the ad industry goes gaga for generative AI, many publishers have raised red flags about the impact these tools could have on the media ecosystem. They’ve expressed concerns around whether responses generated by AI are gleaning information from behind paywalls and how these tools could potentially cut into site traffic.

Continue reading here.—RB

Over the last eight years, performance marketing expert Dara Denney spent over 10,000 hours in ad accounts and $100m in ad spend. Now she’s partnering up with the creative analytics platform Motion to spill all of her secrets with you so you can unlock your brand’s paid social potential.

Join Dara Denney and Motion for a free virtual event series with upcoming live sessions in June and July. Get answers to your burning performance marketing questions, including:

• How can you build a high-performing creative team?
• What are the best ways to conduct research and creative analysis?
• Which trends are working on TikTok and Facebook right now?

Plus, you’ll get Dara’s personal templates, a look into her unique processes, and live Q&A sessions showing you how to create top-performing TikTok and Facebook ads.

Register now.

This year’s NBA season has proven historic before it’s even over. The Denver Nuggets made franchise history by advancing to the finals for the first time, while the Eastern Conference finals between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat turned out to be a nail-biter. Miami ultimately won Game 7 after losing three in a row, and sources told Marketing Brew that Celtics fans are still inconsolable.

Meanwhile, the regular season set an attendance record, with 791 sellouts and arenas filled to 97% capacity, according to the NBA. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that advertisers have their heads in the game.

Viewership: iSpot.TV didn’t share ad spend figures for this year, but said regular season games that aired live nationally on ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV saw about 29 billion household TV ad impressions.

• Playoff games airing nationally from the start of the play-in tournament through Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals clocked around 37 billion ad impressions, an increase of 23% over last year.
• In the first round of the playoffs, the Golden State Warriors’ Game 7 win over the Sacramento Kings on ABC was the most-watched first-round game in the league in 24 years, according to Nielsen, averaging nearly 10 million viewers.
• ABC saw viewership rise to average 6 million during the NBA playoffs as of last week, a 12% jump year over year, per Nielsen figures cited in MediaPost.

Ad spend: Ahead of the finals, the playoffs brought in about $339 million in national TV ad revenue across networks, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage. Revenue was about $360 million last year, when more playoff games were played.

Keep reading here.—AM

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Erin Grant is US EVP at Sling & Stone, a PR and communications agency. Earlier in her career, she worked at companies including Bonobos and Freshly.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? I will always love the Dr. Rick commercials that Progressive does. They’re so witty and smart, but beyond that, so relatable. I would have loved to have been in that brainstorm when they were coming up with it.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I wouldn’t call it a trend, but I am thrilled to see companies looking to reinvest in top-of-funnel brand activity again. We’ve seen an overproliferation of paid marketing that, while incredibly necessary for growth, feels void of what really connects people to brands and keeps them coming back—a story that feels relatable, seen, or solves an inherent need. That emotive part is what I think has been missing from the game lately, and I’m stoked to see there’s more of a desire to get back to that again.

Read the full Q&A here.

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

: Mark your calendars for TikTok’s Queer Inclusivity in Marketing virtual session designed to help marketers “amplify queer voices and show up authentically year-round.”

: Take an early look at the new AI chat feature being developed by Instagram.

: Speaking of AI, get up to speed on Snapchat’s My AI chatbot and see how ads will appear on it.

Sip into your Comfort Zone: Stay cool with the ultimate summer chill kit from Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Anwar Carrots—inflatable pool included. You only have until June 7, so enter now on NTWRK.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Mergers and acquisitions, company partnerships, and more.

• Disney and Apple have teamed up to make Disney+ content available on the Apple Vision Pro headset, CEO Bob Iger said.
• The Association of National Advertisers has ended its relationship with PwC—which the trade group hired in 2021 to help it research transparency within the ad-tech industry—due to “dissatisfaction with PwC’s performance,” per Digiday.
• National CineMedia, an in-theater advertising firm, has signed a 10-year deal with Regal Cinemas.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• How Good Weird, a new genderless beauty brand, is courting Gen Zers
• Unilever commits to hiring disabled talent on its ad production teams
• This week in agencies: Shifts at Omnicom, Tombras, and more