Google Fined by French Regulators in Copyright Dispute With News Publishers
French regulators have fined Google €250 million for violating regulations and not paying media companies for using copyrighted materials in training its AI chatbot. Learn more about the ruling and the growing clash between AI companies and publishers worldwide.
- The French competition watchdog has fined Google 250 million euros ($271.73 million) for violating EU intellectual property regulations in a dispute with media publishers.
- Google has announced that it would not contest the decision as a part of settlement proceedings with France’s most prominent news organizations.
Competition regulators in France have fined Google 250 million euros ($270 million) for not negotiating with media companies in the country for fair licensing deals on published copyrighted materials to train its artificial intelligence algorithms. The fine was part of a wider investigation against the company’s negotiations with media outlets.
Google was primarily criticized for using news articles to train its Gemini chatbot without notifying or asking permission from the original publishers. The fine is the latest development in Google’s dispute with publishers worldwide about the use and payment for displaying news content in search results and AI projects. AI companies have been tussling with multiple governments over the compensation that must be given to publishers.
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While the fair use of news content for AI model training is still highly contested, Google’s failure to inform publishers was a violation, according to French regulators. Governments worldwide have been siding with local publishers who have complained about tech companies unfairly profiting from their content without a fair payment mechanism.
Google has agreed not to contest the fine as a part of the settlement process while stating that the fine was not proportional to the concerns raised by the competition regulators. The fine highlights the growing objections by media companies about using their articles in training AI models. The New York Times has already sued Microsoft and OpenAI over a similar dispute.
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