Michael Simon, of Publishers Press fame, is on a new mission in life:  make AI companies pay for the content that their LLMs (large language models) scrape from the digital sphere and breach the copyrights of the original magazine content creators.  He refers to those creations as “ink-worthy” content and he hopes to “amalgamate hundreds of magazines, small magazines, in order to address the breach of copyright that the AI companies have done.”

The Magazine Coalition is the name of the new adventure he co-founded with Gavin Gillis, the former CEO of Michael’s earlier adventure, The Magazine Channel. While Michael assumes the role of chairman, Gavin assumes the role of CEO of the new venture.  The two of them have assembled a great team devoted to this mission and are more than prepared to launch this new venture.

Michael presented The Magazine Coalition to the audience of the Niche Media Conference in Las Vegas (more than 375 magazine publishers and editors) where I was in attendance to deliver a keynote speech about the future of print in a digital age.  I was so impressed by the idea, the mission, and the vision of The Magazine Coalition that I added a slide to my presentation to give them an additional plug. 

And I was able to sit with Michael for a Mr. Magazine™ interview for the blog.  So please sit back, relax and enjoy this wonderful new venture that aims to help magazine publishers enhance and increase their revenues from their “ink-worthy” content.

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Michael Simon, Chairman and Co-Founder of The Magazine Coalition:

But first the soundbites:

On the mission of The Magazine Coalition:  “We are going to amalgamate hundreds of magazines, small magazines, in order to address the breach of copyright that the AI companies have done, as well as license content moving into the future.”

On the significance of ink on paper magazines: “The great thing about magazines, especially niche publications and special interest publications, business to business publications, scientific medical publications, is that before you can put ink on paper, because that’s permanent, you can’t backspace that away.”

On the morphing of The Magazine Channel into The Magazine Companion: “If we had The Magazine Channel today with a thousand magazines underneath that umbrella, the AI companies would be very interested in talking to us about licensing that content to them so that their LLMs, (large language models), could learn from that ink-worthy content that was printable.”

On whether AI is a friend or foe of the publishing industry: “I don’t know if it’s an either or, I do think the AI companies are responsible for copyright breach. And I do think that they owe the publishing industry and the content creators compensation for what they’ve learned.”

On his fears from AI companies: “I don’t have any fears of the AI companies. I think we solve a problem for the AI companies. I don’t think that they like being viewed as thieves.”

On where he sees The Magazine Companion a year from now: “I think we’ll have a thousand magazines in the coalition by the end of this year. And that represents a significant volume of content that the AI companies will be forced to pay attention to as we represent that thousand titles.”

On what he does to unwind at the end of the day: “I like reading. I like reading books, and I like reading older books.”

On what keeps him up at night: “Michael sleeps very well. I do read at night. My last reading is The Good Book, and in the evening, right before I go to sleep, I’ll get 15 to 20 minutes of the Bible in. I sleep very soundly.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Michael Simon, Chairman and Co-Founder of The Magazine Coalition:

Samir Husni: What’s your elevator pitch about The Magazine Coalition?

Michael Simon: We are going to amalgamate hundreds of magazines, small magazines, in order to address the breach of copyright that the AI companies have done, as well as license content moving into the future.

Samir Husni: What gave you the idea?

Michael Simon: So about 15 years ago, I was looking at a workflow on a whiteboard.  I just put a spigot on the workflow and said, we want it. We can exhaust all of this content. We were printing a thousand magazines a month.

And I said, what if we exhausted out the digital content besides going to a printing plate to print? What if we just exhausted it into a format which we could put on phones and iPads and computers? And we developed some flip technology. We had text mining. We did a lot of tagging.

We were indexing magazine articles with tags for the purpose of search. And the idea was to have a grand umbrella of special interest publications, very vertical, vertically deep content across a broad spectrum of topics. So that one could perform a search and come up with very specific content that had been written and edited by humans.

And it had been fact checked. We I’ve always discovered that what’s on Google, not everything is factual. It’s not been edited. It’s not been fact checked. The great thing about magazines, especially niche publications and special interest publications, business to business publications, scientific medical publications, is that before you can put ink on paper, because that’s permanent, you can’t backspace that away.

So the benefit to the general population, I thought, would have been to have a subset, really not necessarily a competitor of Google, but to have a separate, The Magazine Channel is what we called it. And it was all edited. It was ink worthy.

It was everything that you searched for and discovered out of The Magazine Channel was ink worthy, meaning it had been edited. It had been fact checked. And there was no question as to whether or not what you were reading was true.

15 years ago, you go on Google and find a lot of things that weren’t true. Hopefully, that maybe less now, but it’s still. I thought it was going to be a nice companion to other search tools was to have The Magazine Channel available to the general population. And then I was going to sell advertising to that and share that revenue back with the publishers.

Samir Husni: And how did the idea of The Magazine Channel morphed into The Magazine Coalition?

Michael Simon: My son, Jackson, was working at The Magazine Channel. I’m a fifth generation printer. Both of my sons were in at Publishers Press when we unfortunately had to sell in 2017.

My older son, Michael, was working much closer to the press room. And Jackson was very interested in the digital side of things. And he went to work for The Magazine Channel.

When I separated that out of Publishers Press, I hired a different CEO. We had it down in Austin. We had a group of programmers in Austin that were developing the programs around The Magazine Channel.

Jackson was down in Austin working with Gavin Gillis, the new CEO of The Magazine Coalition, who is the former CEO of The Magazine Channel. Late last year, my son Jackson started reminding me that if we had The Magazine Channel today with a thousand magazines underneath that umbrella, the AI companies would be very interested in talking to us about licensing that content to them so that their LLMs, (large language models), could learn from that ink-worthy content that was printable. It was not just information that someone puts out with their opinion, but it had gone through an editor.

It’s gone through a thought checker. And it’s finally ink on paper, which is very permanent.

Samir Husni: So do you think AI is a friend or a foe?

Michael Simon: I think I can hold both thoughts in my head at the same time.

It’s very obvious and evident that the magazine publishing industry can and is using artificial intelligence tools to aid and assist them in producing good content. At the same time, artificial intelligence LLMs, maybe because there wasn’t a mechanism by which they could amalgamate magazine publishing into one funnel, which is what we hope to provide, and nobody told them they couldn’t search the web for everything that they’ve done until recently. And people started saying, you’re using my content without attribution, you’re using my content without compensation.

So I look at it as really, I don’t know if it’s an either or, I do think the AI companies are responsible for copyright breach. And I do think that they owe the publishing industry and the content creators compensation for what they’ve learned. And I do think it would be appropriate that we license our content from publishing industry to AI companies for them to continue to learn and learn correctly and to give proper citation and proper attribution and proper remuneration for that content.

Samir Husni: So if I am a magazine publisher, how do I join the magazine coalition?

Michael Simon: Actually, you just go to magazinecoalition.com, you sign up, and we will get you the information. We will enter into a licensing agreement that is non-exclusive, and it’s voidable. It’s exclusive only in terms of my right to use that content . It is only for the purpose of dealing with the AI companies.

So I need the archives in order to do research on what, how much, how often, with what frequency that the LLMs have touched that content. Every time they touched it, there needs to be some compensation afforded that. Also, I want to license that content moving forward with the AI companies.

So if you just visit magazinecoalition.com, all the information is available for you to sign up and for us to get back in touch with you.

Samir Husni: And what’s in it for me as a magazine publisher?

Michael Simon: Oh, as a magazine publisher, it really provides a very nice opportunity to bring in additional revenue, obviously. There’s cases and settlements and deals that have already been created and settled.

Several big companies, large publishing companies have settled with AI companies to the tune of significant money on an annual ongoing basis to license that content. We feel like if we can bring hundreds, maybe a thousand or more magazines to the table, that we can settle on copyright breach for a pretty significant sum. And we can also entice them to pay a reasonable fee moving forward with licensing arrangements.

51% of all the net revenue that comes into The Magazine Coalition will be redistributed back to our licensors. We guarantee the majority of the money will go back to the publishing community.

Samir Husni: Are you going to accept or get into deals with only ink on paper magazines or also the so-called digital publications?

Michael Simon: We would certainly be open arms with publications which are only just in digital format.

We feel like they’re presenting content. Their content has been scrapped. They’ve been touched by the LLMs and they’re still producing good original content moving forward, which could be licensed to the AI companies.

Samir Husni: And Michael, what’s your biggest fear from AI companies?

Michael Simon: I don’t have any fears of the AI companies. I think we solve a problem for the AI companies. I don’t think that they like being viewed as thieves.

We can provide them with a single portal for magazines by which they can legally, and following copyright laws, have access to a wealth of archives and guaranteed fresh content moving forward. Our premise is win-win-win all the way around. We think the AI companies will embrace rather than resist our overtures at settlement and having a deal moving forward.

The AI companies, I think, are anxious to put this. They have the resources by which they can pay for having searched the archives and they have the resources to pay for the licensing moving forward. I personally hope that this will be a collaborative effort.

Although we have hired a substantial, significant law firm, Goodwin Proctor, and we’ve also got a company called Sim IP that has assured us of $10 to $20 million in funds to litigate, if necessary. This case, we hope to have one grand case that we’re going to bring to the AI companies, of which there’s 8 or 10, so we’ll have to sit down with each of them individually and work out an arrangement that’s amenable to our publishers and to the AI companies.

Samir Husni: So you and I are having the same conversation a year from now. What would you tell me The Magazine Coalition accomplished in 2025?

Michael Simon: I think we’ll have a thousand magazines in the coalition by the end of this year. And that represents a significant volume of content that the AI companies will be forced to pay attention to as we represent that thousand titles. I don’t know that we’ll have settlements within 12 months.

I think that could occur over 15, 24, maybe even 36 months. I’m not sure. I’m hoping it’s sooner. I hope it doesn’t take years and years. I hope it doesn’t get to litigation. I’d much rather it not be litigated, but if that’s what it comes to, we’re prepared for that battle.

We have the right attorneys. We have the right funds to move forward aggressively, if need be. But in a year’s time, this time next year, I hope we’ve got some deals already settled with one or two AI companies.

There may be one or two cases of litigation filed by that time as well.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical last two questions, is there anything I should have asked you I did not ask you?

Michael Simon: I’ve got a really good team that I’ve put together. We’ve got the background of asking for licenses for the purpose of data distribution.

It used to be in a consumer-facing product. Now it’s in a data brokerage arrangement with fighting AI companies for copyright breach and licensing. No, I think we’ve covered the waterfront pretty well.

Samir Husni: Excellent. If I come uninvited one evening to your house, what do I catch Michael doing? Reading a book, watching TV, having a glass of wine? What do you do to unwind at the end of the day?

Michael Simon:  I like reading. I like reading books, and I like reading older books.

I prefer to read first editions from 1800s, early 1900s. Right now I’m reading a first edition T.S. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Faith, and it’s a first edition, leather-bound. I love the beauty of a book, especially a sample that’s 100 years old, that’s been very, very well taken care of.

I like actually reading that, and I like to pass those on to my children.

Samir Husni: What keeps Michael up at night this year?

Michael Simon: Michael sleeps very well. I do read at night.

My last reading is The Good Book, and in the evening, right before I go to sleep, I’ll get 15 to 20 minutes of the Bible in. I sleep very soundly. I have had an extremely, exceedingly blessed life, and so every day I’ll look at it as a blessing, and it’s a bonus.

I’m very, very blessed in so many ways that I try not to have any worries or concerns. To me, life’s too short to have that, so I don’t allow anything. Maybe a little concern for one kid or another at some time or another, but for the most part, even that, that’s life, letting it have its due, and nothing’s perfect, so I sleep very soundly.

Samir Husni: Thank you very much, and I wish you all the best in your new venture.

Michael Simon: Thank you. I appreciate it.