"Google's testimony to U.K. lawmakers this week did more than restate familiar arguments about fair use and training. It clarified the boundaries of what the company believes it should, and should not, pay publishers for in the AI-driven search ecosystem. For publishers trying to navigate AI licensing, the message was blunt: Google is willing to pay for access, but not for training - and it remains unwilling to define AI Overviews as a compensable use of journalism."
"This isn't a blanket "we won't pay" publishers for content used for AI purposes ever, but in her appearance before the U.K parliament, Roxanne Carter, Google's head of public policy for copyright, made clear that the company does not believe it needs to license unpaywalled content for AI training. She claimed its reasoning is that training LLMs on open-web content is a process of statistical analysis rather than copying or retrieving information."
Google draws a distinction between paying for access to publisher content and paying for AI training. The company contends that training large language models on open-web material is statistical analysis rather than copying, and therefore does not require licensing of unpaywalled content. Google also refuses to classify AI Overviews as a compensable use of journalism. Publishers view the stance as legally incorrect and limiting, arguing that payment should be required for training materials. The practical effect narrows publishers' revenue opportunities to access deals while closing negotiation pathways around training and overview-generation uses.
Read at Digiday
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