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

Although Google’s AI Overviews have 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 towards Google, claiming the tech big illegally powers its AI Overviews function with content material from its websites. Penske claimed within the lawsuit that the AI function can be “siphoning and discouraging consumer site 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 court docket, claims that about 20 p.c of Google searches that hyperlink to considered one 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 stated that the tech big will “defend towards these meritless claims” and that “AI Overviews ship site visitors to a higher range of web sites.”

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

Past Google’s authorized troubles, different AI corporations have additionally been going through their very own court docket instances. In 2023, the New York Occasions sued OpenAI, claiming the AI firm used revealed 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 concentrating on its Claude chatbot’s use of copyrighted works.