THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy

By Canadian Press

Future legislation compensating news outlets for content must account for AI: report

Apr 13, 2025 | 9:11 AM

Canadian researchers say any future legislation meant to level the playing field between Big Tech and journalism organizations must account for generative artificial intelligence.

The experts behind a new report analyzing Canada’s Online News Act say it’s important for the popular technology to figure into future policies because the news industry’s battleground for fairness and compensation is shifting from platforms to AI chatbots.

They say AI companies are scrambling for high-quality content to train their models, which has led them to news outlets and their content.

The researchers at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University note individual publishers have been signing licensing deals with AI companies in hopes of recouping some compensation from those that have trained models on their news.

The researchers warn such deals may undermine publishers in the long run and they suggest news outlets are better-off pursuing collective, rather than individual, solutions.

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Their findings are contained in a report exploring the Online News Act, legislation the federal government pursued to extract compensation from some search engine and social media companies to help journalism businesses whose work has been repurposed by tech companies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2025.