Tech Legal Brief #15 –Google and Meta Are Using AI To Strangle the Media. But For How Long?

+ AI and copyright law, CJEU's landmark ruling in Case C-797/23, Meta Platforms Ireland v. AGCOM & Google AI Overview

Introduction

We all know it, the central roles of Google and Meta in the modern information ecosystem have strangled journalism, media and creatorship for years. The depth and quality of creative work is substituted by click-worthy headlines and images, while the bulk of profits accumulate in the pockets of tech platforms.

Only a few traditional newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian have successfully managed to pivot to a digital subscription model. Substack is one bright example of how independent creators and smaller media publications, at least to some extent, can continue to find a foothold and leverage in a skewed media system where American tech giants serve as global gatekeepers.

AI adds a new layer of complexity to the dire situation of media plurality (by the way, media plurality is a human right in the EU, Article 11 (2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: “The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected”). Nowadays, most viral posts sound like they were written by the same author – typically, because they are - and people gravitate towards AI websites for news and opinions which were painstakingly reported by human creators with negligible compensation and no recognition.

Copyrights may be an inappropriate weapon to fight back. Even if a licensing scheme of some sort were established to honor the creators whose works are used as AI training fodder, chances are that the licensing fees will accrue to the major publishing houses, record labels, movie studios, and rights organization, while individual creators are left with pennies. Cory Doctorow has argued for a long time, that copyright won’t solve creators’ generative AI problem, but it may solve their bosses’ problem in the short term.

At the same time, there are seemingly no limits on how powerful the AI companies can become without legal intervention. The ultimate mission of American AI companies is to create a new form of alien intelligence that can do your job and the job of everyone around you, until human labor becomes redundant, and the tech capitalists yield complete control over every industry from the military to the local flower shop. Essentially, AI tech leaders are religious fanatics fighting for a self-serving cause with full support and confidence from the US government.

Archaic copyright laws cannot stop this mission in its tracks. The fundamental laws of finance and physics eventually will, but it could take years. The best way to prevent AI from swallowing up what remains of the media industry in the coming years is by a strict enforcement of competition laws. The EU is uniquely positioned to do so. In this post, we will look at how Google and Meta are threatening media pluralism, go deep on the meaning and implications of CJEU’s landmark decision in Case C-797/23, Meta Platforms Ireland v. AGCOM, how Google AI Overview threatens the media landscape anew, and why copyright may be an inappropriate mechanism to address it.

This is the 15^th edition of my newsletter concept, Tech Legal Brief. You can see all previous editions here. I write and curate these Briefs as a service to paid subscribers who occasionally want to go deeper to gain a glimpse of clarity on the complex intersection of tech, law, and society. Below the paywall, you will find original reporting and analysis that you can’t find anywhere else on the internet.