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Google's AI Overviews 'Misconduct' Undermines Publishers Who Create Content, Lawsuit Says

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  Published in Food and Wine on Tuesday, September 16th 2025 at 11:05 GMT by CNET
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Google’s AI‑Generated Overviews Come Under Fire in First U.S. Lawsuit
By [Your Name] – 2025-09-16

In a move that could reshape the relationship between tech giants and content creators, a coalition of publishers has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. The suit, announced in late 2023, accuses the search engine’s AI‑powered “overviews” of web pages of unlawfully sampling copyrighted text without permission, undermining the very publishers that supply the content.

What Are Google’s AI Overviews?

When a user enters a query, Google often shows a concise paragraph beneath the search result link—a brief, AI‑generated synopsis of the underlying page. This feature, promoted by Google as “AI overviews,” is intended to give users a quick snapshot of what a page contains, helping them decide whether to click through. The overviews are created by Google’s machine‑learning models, which ingest large swaths of the internet during training and subsequently produce a shortened version of the text on demand.

According to the lawsuit, the overviews are not merely “citations” or “excerpts.” Plaintiffs claim they are derived from copyrighted passages that the publisher never authorized Google to reproduce. Because the overviews are often several sentences long and directly drawn from the original content, the publishers argue that Google is effectively redistributing protected text without a license.

The Plaintiffs: A Coalition of Major Newsrooms

The complaint lists more than a dozen plaintiffs, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, among others. While the lawsuit is framed as a collective action, each plaintiff is a distinct entity with its own editorial operations, and each alleges that the overviews use text from their proprietary content.

The plaintiffs are seeking:

• Statutory damages ranging from $750,000 to $3,000,000 per copyright infringement claim, a figure that reflects the severity of the alleged violation under U.S. copyright law.
• A temporary restraining order or injunction to halt Google’s use of AI overviews until the litigation is resolved.
• Legal fees and court costs, which are standard in intellectual‑property cases of this magnitude.

In its complaint, the plaintiffs also allege that Google’s overviews are part of a broader “commercialized” use of copyrighted content that undermines the publishers’ business models and the “fair‑use” defense they often rely on for online content.

Google’s Defense: Fair Use and Transformative Technology

Google has responded swiftly, filing a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the overviews qualify as “transformative” and thus fall under the fair‑use doctrine. The company’s legal team argues that:

1. Limited Use – The overviews are short, often no more than 30–60 words, and therefore constitute a minimal use of the underlying text.
2. Transformative Purpose – By re‑presenting the original text in a new form, the overviews provide a different experience for users, arguably adding “new meaning or message.”
3. No Market Harm – Google asserts that the overviews do not replace the need to visit the original article; rather, they serve to inform users about the content, driving traffic to the publishers’ sites.

Google also pointed out that it collects the data for the overviews through a “web crawling” mechanism that respects robots.txt files and other signals from webmasters, and that it does not store the copyrighted text in its servers for later use.

Legal analysts note that fair‑use arguments in the age of AI are far from settled. A key question is whether a “brief summary” produced by an automated system is considered a “transformative use” in the same way a human‑written abstract would be. Courts will need to examine the specific nature of the overviews and the extent to which they reproduce the original expression.

Industry Reactions and the Broader Context

The lawsuit arrives amid a flurry of concern from publishers about the use of copyrighted content in training AI models. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Authors Guild v. Google was still pending, and the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to grant an injunction to stop the use of copyrighted works in training large language models added to the uncertainty.

Google’s response also highlights the company’s broader strategy. In recent months, Google has been positioning its Gemini AI family as a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama. The firm claims it will adopt “AI‑safety and copyright‑compliance protocols” to avoid future legal pitfalls. However, the lawsuit suggests that such protocols may not yet be robust enough to satisfy publishers.

The New York Times’ legal team highlighted that the overviews could erode the “incentive for quality journalism.” They argued that the removal of the “fair‑use” defense for AI‑generated summaries could lead to a chilling effect on the publication of online content, as publishers might limit or block AI access to their sites.

Conversely, Google spokesperson Sara Patel emphasized that the company “seeks to provide a better user experience while respecting the rights of content owners.” She added that the firm is open to negotiating licensing agreements with publishers, though she denied that the company had yet entered into such deals.

Potential Outcomes and Implications

If the court sides with the plaintiffs, Google could face significant monetary penalties and be forced to halt the use of AI overviews, potentially reshaping how search results are displayed. A ruling in favor of Google would reinforce the legal viability of AI‑generated content under fair use, potentially emboldening other tech firms to expand similar services.

Either way, the lawsuit underscores a growing tension between the rapid development of generative AI and the existing intellectual‑property framework. Publishers are increasingly vigilant, seeking to protect their brand and revenue streams, while AI companies argue that their transformative technologies serve public interest and innovation.

In the meantime, Google has begun temporarily disabling AI overviews on a handful of sites to avoid further litigation. The company has also announced plans to enhance its AI policy, stating that it will “work closely with stakeholders” to find a balanced solution that protects both creators and users.

What Next?

The legal battle is expected to take at least one to two years to resolve, with multiple rounds of discovery and possibly a trial. During this time, the industry will watch closely to see how courts interpret the interplay between AI, copyright, and fair use. The outcome could set a precedent that shapes the trajectory of AI development across the tech sector for years to come.

For now, publishers are keeping a tight eye on Google’s next moves, while the company is navigating a fine line between innovation and compliance—an endeavor that may ultimately determine the future of online content and AI‑driven discovery.