A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators don't apply to AI overviews. In this case, Google's AI had falsely linked two publishers to fraud and made claims that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. The ruling could set a precedent for AI-generated content liability worldwide.
  • Fmstrat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    4 hours ago

    All the arguments of “AI doesn’t impact copyright because it creates derivative content” were bound to lead here. You can’t (or at least shouldn’t be able to) have it both ways.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.todayEnglish
      17·
      2 hours ago

      I was thinking the same thing.

      An AI output is EITHER an original work (either as a wholly original work or as a derivative of another work), or it’s not (and is thus a republication of an existing work).

      If it’s a republication, then Google owes a ton of copyright fees and the original publisher of whatever bit of training data got regurgitated is liable. If it’s an original / derivative work, then Google owes nobody anything, but is responsible for whatever the AI outputs.

      For example if I write somewhere ‘It’s 100% safe to mix ammonia and chlorine, it gets stains out super fast!’ (note- DON’T do this, it’s toxic), I’m the author of that statement so if someone does that and dies I’ve got partial responsibility for that death.

      Same thing with Google.