Google faces its first AI Overviews lawsuit from a serious US writer

Though Google’s AI Overviews had been launched with a comically rocky start, it is about to face a much more severe problem. Penske Media, the writer for Rolling Stone, Selection, Billboard and others, filed a lawsuit in opposition to Google, claiming the tech big illegally powers its AI Overviews characteristic with content material from its websites. Penske claimed within the lawsuit that the AI characteristic can also be “siphoning and discouraging person visitors to PMC’s and different publishers’ web sites,” including that “the income generated by these visits will decline.”

The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC’s federal district courtroom, claims that about 20 p.c of Google searches that hyperlink to one in every of Penske’s websites now have AI Overviews. The media firm argued that this proportion will proceed to extend and that its affiliate income by 2024 dropped by greater than a 3rd from its peak. Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda mentioned that the tech big will “defend in opposition to these meritless claims” and that “AI Overviews ship visitors to a larger range of websites.”

Earlier this yr, Google confronted an analogous lawsuit from Chegg, an academic tech firm that is identified for textbook leases. Like Penske Media, this lawsuit alleged that Google’s AI Overviews harm web site visitors and income for Chegg. Nonetheless, the Penske lawsuit is the primary time that Google has confronted authorized motion from a serious US writer about its AI search capabilities.

Past Google’s authorized troubles, different AI corporations have additionally been going through their very own courtroom instances. In 2023, the New York Occasions sued OpenAI, claiming the AI firm used printed information articles to coach its chatbots with out providing compensation. Extra not too long ago, Anthropic agreed to pay a $1.5 billion settlement in a category motion lawsuit focusing on its Claude chatbot’s use of copyrighted works.