Federal Lawsuits | Business Litigation | Media Rights

Introduction: Google on the Hot Seat

Penske Media Corporation (PMC), owner of major titles including Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, has initiated litigation against Google that could reshape the relationship between publishers and search engines in the AI era. PMC’s federal lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. in September 2025, is the first time a large U.S. publisher has formally sued Google over its “AI Overviews” feature, arguing that Google’s AI‑generated summaries siphon traffic, reduce revenue, and violate legal norms. (Reuters)

Factual Background

• What are AI Overviews?
  Google’s AI Overviews are summaries generated by AI that appear at the top of search result pages. They digest content from publishers’ webpages so users can see key information without necessarily clicking through to the source. (TechCrunch)
• PMC’s Claim:
  Penske alleges that Google has used its journalism without permission to generate these summaries, while denying PMC meaningful compensation or choice. Because Google holds a dominant share of the U.S. search market (nearly 90% according to the complaint), PMC claims it is coerced: either accept Google’s use of their content (including for summaries/training) or risk being excluded from search results, which would be devastating. (Investing.com)
• Impact on Traffic and Revenue:
  • PMC contends that about 20% of Google searches that would link to PMC sites now show AI Overviews. (TechCrunch)
  • Affiliate revenue has allegedly dropped by more than one‑third from its peak by the end of 2024. (Investing.com)
  • PMC asserts that ad revenue, subscription incentives, and other monetizable traffic are all being harmed due to fewer users clicking through. (TechCrunch)
• Legal Allegations:
  The complaint raises claims including copyright infringement, unfair competition, and antitrust violation. Penske claims Google’s practice is tantamount to republishing their content without consent and using its dominant market position to force publishers into a non‑negotiable arrangement. (TechCrunch)

Google’s Response

Google has rejected Penske’s allegations, describing them as “meritless.” Its counterarguments include:

• AI Overviews improve user experience. (TechCrunch)
• Google insists that its summaries drive traffic to a “wider variety of sites” and that it already sends billions of clicks to sites across the web every day. (TechCrunch)
• Google also argues that the feature is permissible and consistent with how indexing/search has historically worked: publishers have always had some trade‑off between visibility in search and how much content gets surfaced. (TechCrunch)

Key Legal Issues & Challenges

Several important legal questions will determine how this case proceeds:

1. Copyright & Fair Use / “Re‑use”
   Does generating an AI summary based on parts of an article constitute a copyright violation? Is it fair use? Google might argue that the summaries are transformative, or that pulling snippets is akin to what search engines have done with snippets or meta descriptions historically. PMC will argue the summaries go beyond what fair use allows, particularly as economic harm is alleged.
2. Antitrust / Monopoly Power & Coercion
   PMC’s claim that Google coerces publishers into allowing use of content by threatening de‑indexing (i.e. removal from search results) implicates antitrust law: abuse of dominance, tying, or unfair conditioning. The degree of Google’s market power, and whether this behavior constitutes unlawful conduct under U.S. antitrust statutes (e.g. Sherman Act, Clayton Act) will be central.
3. Causation & Quantification of Damages
   PMC will need to demonstrate causation: that the AI Overviews caused the decline in clickthroughs/referrals and that those declines translated into measurable losses in affiliate, ad, subscription revenue, etc. Establishing temporal coincidence (when feature rolled out, when declines started), statistical data, and possibly expert testimony will be important.
4. Publisher’s Ability to Opt Out, Negotiation Leverage
   The lawsuit asserts that there is effectively no realistic opt‑out for publishers: either you allow Google to use your content in summaries/training, or you lose visibility. Whether that claim holds, and whether PMC can show that Google has “tying” power or uses unfair contract terms, is likely to be litigated.
5. Precedent & Comparable Cases
   Penske is not alone: for example, Chegg already sued Google over similar claims earlier in 2025. Also, publishers and trade groups (including in Europe) have lodged antitrust or regulatory complaints over AI Overviews. These precedents and regulatory actions may influence (or shift) the legal framing, discovery, or negotiations. (Reuters)

Implications

• For other publishers, this lawsuit may open the door to similar claims. If Penske succeeds, it could push Google to change how it builds AI Overviews, potentially require licensing deals, opt‑out mechanisms, or revenue‑sharing.
• More broadly, this case could define the legal contours of how generative AI interacts with copyrighted content, what constitutes permissible “researched / summarized” reuse vs. infringement, and how market power in search can impose costs on content producers.
• It could also affect investments, subscription models, affiliate revenue strategies in digital media: publishers may rethink how heavily they depend on search referrals if features like summaries reduce clickthrough.
• For regulators and legislators, this may inform future regulation of AI, content scraping, platform responsibilities, and antitrust enforcement in tech.

Conclusion: Only the beginning of Google AI Overview Challenges

Penske Media’s lawsuit represents a turning point in the evolving conflict between publishers and AI‑driven platforms. It marks the first major U.S. publisher to formally challenge Google over the AI Overviews feature, claiming that the feature uses their journalism without consent and significantly undermines their business model. The case is likely to be closely watched — as much for its outcome as for its procedural developments — and could establish key precedents for how intellectual property, search, and AI coexist.