{"id":46437,"date":"2025-11-20T07:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalcontentnext.org\/?p=46437"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T03:11:15","slug":"what-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalcontentnext.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/20\/what-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along\/","title":{"rendered":"What AI reveals about premium content: It was valuable all along"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"shariff shariff-align-flex-start shariff-widget-align-flex-start\"><ul class=\"shariff-buttons theme-round orientation-horizontal buttonsize-medium\"><li class=\"shariff-button twitter shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#595959\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F&text=What%20AI%20reveals%20about%20premium%20content%3A%20It%20was%20valuable%20all%20along&via=DCNorg\" title=\"Share on X\" aria-label=\"Share on X\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#000; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"32px\" height=\"20px\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path fill=\"#000\" d=\"M14.258 10.152L23.176 0h-2.113l-7.747 8.813L7.133 0H0l9.352 13.328L0 23.973h2.113l8.176-9.309 6.531 9.309h7.133zm-2.895 3.293l-.949-1.328L2.875 1.56h3.246l6.086 8.523.945 1.328 7.91 11.078h-3.246zm0 0\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"shariff-button linkedin shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#1488bf\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/sharing\/share-offsite\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F\" title=\"Share on LinkedIn\" aria-label=\"Share on LinkedIn\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#0077b5; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"32px\" height=\"20px\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 27 32\"><path fill=\"#0077b5\" d=\"M6.2 11.2v17.7h-5.9v-17.7h5.9zM6.6 5.7q0 1.3-0.9 2.2t-2.4 0.9h0q-1.5 0-2.4-0.9t-0.9-2.2 0.9-2.2 2.4-0.9 2.4 0.9 0.9 2.2zM27.4 18.7v10.1h-5.9v-9.5q0-1.9-0.7-2.9t-2.3-1.1q-1.1 0-1.9 0.6t-1.2 1.5q-0.2 0.5-0.2 1.4v9.9h-5.9q0-7.1 0-11.6t0-5.3l0-0.9h5.9v2.6h0q0.4-0.6 0.7-1t1-0.9 1.6-0.8 2-0.3q3 0 4.9 2t1.9 6z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"shariff-button mastodon shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#563ACC\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s2f.kytta.dev\/?text=What%20AI%20reveals%20about%20premium%20content%3A%20It%20was%20valuable%20all%20along https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F\" title=\"Share on Mastodon\" aria-label=\"Share on Mastodon\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#6364FF; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"75\" height=\"79\" viewBox=\"0 0 75 79\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"M37.813-.025C32.462-.058 27.114.13 21.79.598c-8.544.621-17.214 5.58-20.203 13.931C-1.12 23.318.408 32.622.465 41.65c.375 7.316.943 14.78 3.392 21.73 4.365 9.465 14.781 14.537 24.782 15.385 7.64.698 15.761-.213 22.517-4.026a54.1 54.1 0 0 0 .01-6.232c-6.855 1.316-14.101 2.609-21.049 1.074-3.883-.88-6.876-4.237-7.25-8.215-1.53-3.988 3.78-.43 5.584-.883 9.048 1.224 18.282.776 27.303-.462 7.044-.837 14.26-4.788 16.65-11.833 2.263-6.135 1.215-12.79 1.698-19.177.06-3.84.09-7.692-.262-11.52C72.596 7.844 63.223.981 53.834.684a219.453 219.453 0 0 0-16.022-.71zm11.294 12.882c5.5-.067 10.801 4.143 11.67 9.653.338 1.48.471 3 .471 4.515v21.088h-8.357c-.07-7.588.153-15.182-.131-22.765-.587-4.368-7.04-5.747-9.672-2.397-2.422 3.04-1.47 7.155-1.67 10.735v6.392h-8.307c-.146-4.996.359-10.045-.404-15.002-1.108-4.218-7.809-5.565-10.094-1.666-1.685 3.046-.712 6.634-.976 9.936v14.767h-8.354c.109-8.165-.238-16.344.215-24.5.674-5.346 5.095-10.389 10.676-10.627 4.902-.739 10.103 2.038 12.053 6.631.375 1.435 1.76 1.932 1.994.084 1.844-3.704 5.501-6.739 9.785-6.771.367-.044.735-.068 1.101-.073z\"\/><defs><linearGradient id=\"paint0_linear_549_34\" x1=\"37.0692\" y1=\"0\" x2=\"37.0692\" y2=\"79\" gradientUnits=\"userSpaceOnUse\"><stop stop-color=\"#6364FF\"\/><stop offset=\"1\" stop-color=\"#563ACC\"\/><\/linearGradient><\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<p>Richard Gingras has been surfacing in my human \u201cfeed\u201d far too often these past few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As many readers will know, Gingras spent nearly two decades as Google\u2019s head of news and still appears to hold an internal <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/authors\/richard-gingras\/\">quasi-advisory role<\/a>. Gingras now also serves as Chair of Village Media, a company Google routinely holds up as its model \u201cpublisher success story\u201d before parliaments and regulators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just last week, I happened to see Gingras across the room at the International Center For Journalists (ICFJ) annual awards dinner. Not insignificantly, Google, and Gingras personally, have generously supported them with tens of thousands of dollars. So I was grateful to see him there; journalism certainly appreciates the financial support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Later that same night, I listened to a new episode of the Future Media <a href=\"https:\/\/rickysutton.substack.com\/p\/advertisers-see-no-value-in-news\">podcast<\/a>, in which Gingras shared his assessment that serious news has \u201cno value to consumers,\u201d and that \u201cthe economic value of a news query\u201d is so negligible that, if rounded, \u201cwould be zero.\u201d It was jarring to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Few people have had more influence over the digital distribution of news and premium content than Richard Gingras. Yet here he was, Google\u2019s longtime news advisor, perpetuating the false narrative that serious journalism has almost no value simply because Google\u2019s preferred metric \u2013 its pay-per-click search text advertising monopoly \u2013 generates the least revenue from a news query.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-an-actual-journalist-holds-big-tech-accountable\">An actual journalist holds big tech accountable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Two weeks ago, a different sort of Gingras interview appeared. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.codastory.com\/authoritarian-tech\/the-werewolf-game-an-interview-with-googles-former-news-chief-richard-gingras\/#transcript\"><em>Coda Story<\/em><\/a>, fearless, independent interviewer, Natalia Antelava did something that almost no journalist does when facing a senior big tech executive: she directly challenged him on his role in helping create the mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also pressed him as he repeatedly slipped into a collective \u201cwe\u201d when describing Google\u2019s relationship to the news business. The subtext was unmistakable: Google sees itself as the arbiter of news value, even as its public talking points and industry actions deny that value even exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-rewriting-failure-as-generosity\">Rewriting failure as generosity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When she asked Gingras what he considered his biggest mistake in his nearly two decades with Google, his answer was telling: <em>\u201cI would say the biggest mistake, honestly, was in our work with the industry, the Google News Initiative. We spent over a billion dollars over eight years, a billion and a half dollars trying to drive innovation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is where I am obliged to note Google\u2019s revenues over the last 10 years approximate to <strong>$2 TRILLION. <\/strong>So Gingras, Google\u2019s chief evangelist to the news industry, would like us to know his biggest mistake in his 18 years at Google was sharing less than one tenth of one percentage of Google\u2019s revenues with the news industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s astonishing how casually he rewrites failure as generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The real \u201cmistake\u201d wasn\u2019t spending too much on the Google News Initiative; it was believing that sprinkling what equates to less than 0.1% of Google\u2019s revenues at the industry could offset the damage Google inflicted on the economics of media. Google\u2019s chief evangelist for their news efforts believes serious news has no economic value and his biggest mistake was sharing a pittance of their revenues with the very companies it used to help maintain its adjudicated illegal monopolies in search, ad exchanges and publisher ad servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, in their spare time, these same publishers provide one of the few remaining checks on power: scrutinizing leaders, governments, institutions, and abusive companies. But in Google\u2019s calculus, \u201ceconomic value\u201d is whatever its ad system can monetize, and the civic value of news simply doesn\u2019t register.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But here\u2019s the irony: AI companies are now proving, more clearly than ever, that news and premium content are among the most valuable resources in the world. Not just culturally. Not just civically. Economically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-ai-exposes-what-google-denies-about-news\">AI exposes what Google denies about news<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Across the AI ecosystem, the most advanced large language models <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2025\/10\/hundreds-of-thousands-of-videos-from-news-publishers-like-the-new-york-times-and-vox-were-used-to-train-ai-models\/\">were trained<\/a> disproportionately on the very materials Silicon Valley once dismissed as \u201clegacy media\u201d: reported information, fact-checked analysis, archives, scientific journals, books, documentaries, and professionally produced entertainment content. Their capabilities come from absorbing narrative, structure, relevance, serendipity, ground truth and cultural cornerstones created by expert journalists, television and film professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This professionally crafted work is not interchangeable with memes, scraped Wikipedia summaries, or social media and user posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-value-of-news-entertainment-and-vetted-information\">The value of news, entertainment and vetted information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Laundering professional content through Reddit or Common Crawl (the profile of which is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/2025\/11\/common-crawl-ai-training-data\/684567\/\">must-read<\/a> in The Atlantic) doesn\u2019t strip its economic value; it merely reveals that protections have not yet been duly enforced. High-quality training data is scarce, slow to produce, and expensive. It requires human expertise, legal standards, editorial judgment, and public trust in the sources, whether individuals or the brands that employ them. These are the exact qualities that distinguish premium publishers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this isn\u2019t theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-law-is-catching-up\">The law is catching up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A growing list of court cases and disclosures shows the same reality: AI companies rely on publishers\u2019 journalism while avoiding paying for it. In <em>Thomson Reuters v. Ross<\/em>, a federal court confirmed that training <a href=\"https:\/\/digitalcontentnext.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/06\/chamber-of-progress-asks-for-blank-check-for-big-tech\/\">AI requires licensing copyrighted content<\/a>, recognizing a real market for high-quality data. In the <em>Kadrey v. Meta<\/em> case, unsealed documents showed Meta employees downloading pirated books and skirting licensing. And in <em>U.S. v. Google<\/em>, we learned that Meta pays Google for an API into its daily scraping to ground its own AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, that means that Meta is apparently paying Google for access to publishers\u2019 work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/analysis\/penske-ai-lawsuit-google-tactics.php\">Penske Media\u2019s recent lawsuit<\/a> argues that Google\u2019s AI Overviews scrape and replace news directly in search results; a practice publishers cannot realistically opt out of because Google controls search through an illegal monopoly. When Google ingests news, sports and entertainment and places AI summaries above it, that is not \u201czero value.\u201d It is extracted value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-extracted-value-is-an-extinction-level-event\">Extracted value is an extinction level event<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If we find ourselves in a world where AI replaces the need to click through to trusted journalism and premium content by using that same content to train its responses without compensation, the entire economic infrastructure \u2013 advertising, subscriptions, licensing \u2013 collapses. You cannot build sustainable media when distribution intermediaries extract the full economic value upstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DCN\u2019s position is clear:&nbsp;premium content is the most valuable resource on the open web.&nbsp;Not only because of the cost of creating it, but because of the trust signals behind it. It is the core asset that fuels AI\u2019s predictive capabilities and factual grounding on the most recent events. And publishers cannot and should not continue to allow it to be scraped, ingested, repurposed, and monetized without specific and freely given consent \u2013 not the kind coerced by a company already found to hold an illegal monopoly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-future-of-ai-relies-on-premium-content\">The future of AI relies on premium content<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The future of AI should and will not be defined by who has the best model or the cheapest compute. It will hinge upon access to the highest-quality data, and whether that data is lawful, licensed, accurate, original, and kept current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Publishers sit on the motherlode. This should be their moment. Unlike synthetic content and scraped user forums, premium content has enduring value because humans create it with standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why DCN has warned policymakers and the copyright office that improperly scraped training data threatens the economic foundation of news and entertainment. That\u2019s why licensing must be the rule, not the exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The industry must align around three principles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>No free training.&nbsp;High-quality content cannot be scraped without permission for search, training, or grounding.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AI cannot substitute for news without fair value.&nbsp;AI Overviews and similar features must not cannibalize traffic using the very journalism they ingest.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Licensing markets must continue to be built.&nbsp;Early negotiating will set the pricing floor; platforms that acknowledge fair value should be the greatest allies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Gingras may claim that news has no value. But Silicon Valley\u2019s behavior proves the opposite. In the AI era, premium content isn\u2019t just valuable; it\u2019s the most valuable input in the entire system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Publishers must stop giving it away.<\/p>\n<div class=\"shariff shariff-align-flex-start shariff-widget-align-flex-start\"><ul class=\"shariff-buttons theme-round orientation-horizontal buttonsize-medium\"><li class=\"shariff-button twitter shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#595959\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F&text=What%20AI%20reveals%20about%20premium%20content%3A%20It%20was%20valuable%20all%20along&via=DCNorg\" title=\"Share on X\" aria-label=\"Share on X\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#000; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"32px\" height=\"20px\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path fill=\"#000\" d=\"M14.258 10.152L23.176 0h-2.113l-7.747 8.813L7.133 0H0l9.352 13.328L0 23.973h2.113l8.176-9.309 6.531 9.309h7.133zm-2.895 3.293l-.949-1.328L2.875 1.56h3.246l6.086 8.523.945 1.328 7.91 11.078h-3.246zm0 0\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"shariff-button linkedin shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#1488bf\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/sharing\/share-offsite\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F\" title=\"Share on LinkedIn\" aria-label=\"Share on LinkedIn\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#0077b5; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"32px\" height=\"20px\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 27 32\"><path fill=\"#0077b5\" d=\"M6.2 11.2v17.7h-5.9v-17.7h5.9zM6.6 5.7q0 1.3-0.9 2.2t-2.4 0.9h0q-1.5 0-2.4-0.9t-0.9-2.2 0.9-2.2 2.4-0.9 2.4 0.9 0.9 2.2zM27.4 18.7v10.1h-5.9v-9.5q0-1.9-0.7-2.9t-2.3-1.1q-1.1 0-1.9 0.6t-1.2 1.5q-0.2 0.5-0.2 1.4v9.9h-5.9q0-7.1 0-11.6t0-5.3l0-0.9h5.9v2.6h0q0.4-0.6 0.7-1t1-0.9 1.6-0.8 2-0.3q3 0 4.9 2t1.9 6z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"shariff-button mastodon shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#563ACC\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s2f.kytta.dev\/?text=What%20AI%20reveals%20about%20premium%20content%3A%20It%20was%20valuable%20all%20along https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentnext.org%2Fblog%2F2025%2F11%2F20%2Fwhat-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along%2F\" title=\"Share on Mastodon\" aria-label=\"Share on Mastodon\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; background-color:#6364FF; color:#fff\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"shariff-icon\" style=\"\"><svg width=\"75\" height=\"79\" viewBox=\"0 0 75 79\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"M37.813-.025C32.462-.058 27.114.13 21.79.598c-8.544.621-17.214 5.58-20.203 13.931C-1.12 23.318.408 32.622.465 41.65c.375 7.316.943 14.78 3.392 21.73 4.365 9.465 14.781 14.537 24.782 15.385 7.64.698 15.761-.213 22.517-4.026a54.1 54.1 0 0 0 .01-6.232c-6.855 1.316-14.101 2.609-21.049 1.074-3.883-.88-6.876-4.237-7.25-8.215-1.53-3.988 3.78-.43 5.584-.883 9.048 1.224 18.282.776 27.303-.462 7.044-.837 14.26-4.788 16.65-11.833 2.263-6.135 1.215-12.79 1.698-19.177.06-3.84.09-7.692-.262-11.52C72.596 7.844 63.223.981 53.834.684a219.453 219.453 0 0 0-16.022-.71zm11.294 12.882c5.5-.067 10.801 4.143 11.67 9.653.338 1.48.471 3 .471 4.515v21.088h-8.357c-.07-7.588.153-15.182-.131-22.765-.587-4.368-7.04-5.747-9.672-2.397-2.422 3.04-1.47 7.155-1.67 10.735v6.392h-8.307c-.146-4.996.359-10.045-.404-15.002-1.108-4.218-7.809-5.565-10.094-1.666-1.685 3.046-.712 6.634-.976 9.936v14.767h-8.354c.109-8.165-.238-16.344.215-24.5.674-5.346 5.095-10.389 10.676-10.627 4.902-.739 10.103 2.038 12.053 6.631.375 1.435 1.76 1.932 1.994.084 1.844-3.704 5.501-6.739 9.785-6.771.367-.044.735-.068 1.101-.073z\"\/><defs><linearGradient id=\"paint0_linear_549_34\" x1=\"37.0692\" y1=\"0\" x2=\"37.0692\" y2=\"79\" gradientUnits=\"userSpaceOnUse\"><stop stop-color=\"#6364FF\"\/><stop offset=\"1\" stop-color=\"#563ACC\"\/><\/linearGradient><\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Gingras has been surfacing in my human \u201cfeed\u201d far too often these past few weeks. As many readers will know, Gingras spent nearly two decades as Google\u2019s head of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1702,"featured_media":46438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5014,3041,1702,11],"tags":[2320,2064,1834],"coauthors":[702],"class_list":["post-46437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-featured-post","category-policy","category-revenue","tag-ai","tag-google","tag-search"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What AI reveals about premium content: It was valuable all along - Digital Content Next<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/digitalcontentnext.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/20\/what-ai-reveals-about-premium-content-it-was-valuable-all-along\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What AI reveals about premium content: It was valuable all along\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Richard Gingras has been surfacing in my human \u201cfeed\u201d far too often these past few weeks. 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