Journalism and AI: Who owns the news?
Publishers, broadcasters and tech companies gathered in Berlin to debate who should pay for the journalism used by artificial intelligence, following a sharp rise in the use of AI chatbots for news.
More than 90,000 people were surveyed worldwide in 2026, with ten percent reporting they use AI chatbots for news on a weekly basis, a figure that rises sharply among younger audiences.
The Global Media Forum in Berlin brought together publishers, legal experts and tech companies to discuss a growing imbalance: AI systems now draw on quality reporting to generate answers, yet the reporting itself often remains largely invisible.
Publishers argue that the traditional exchange between search engines and news sites has broken down, as AI companies copy and summarize content without directing traffic or paying for it.
In the past, search engines like Google indexed our websites and directed users to their articles, generating traffic in return. But now that exchange has broken down.
"AI companies draw on our quality reporting to generate answers, yet the reporting itself often remains largely invisible by the end of this process."
Legal and political pressure
Media houses are pressing "Big Tech" companies to ask permission before using their work and to pay for it, a demand backed by German broadcasters ARD and RTL, along with the BDZV and VAUNET.
In the United States, the New York Times has sued Brave Software for allegedly using its content without permission and bypassing its paywall, adding pressure to the wider debate.
The European Court of Justice is examining whether AI-generated answers can themselves infringe copyright, while a coalition including the Guardian, the BBC and the Financial Times has called for rules giving publishers more control over how AI systems copy and reproduce their content.
The core concern is not just whether AI companies may use journalism, but how publishers and journalists can get paid when their work becomes part of the answers AI systems generate.
"AI systems shouldn't just use quality journalism. They should also pay for it."
Proposals for a payment system
Professor Martin Senftleben, who directs the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam, separates two ways AI companies use journalistic material: training their models and generating responses to individual user questions.
He argues that European copyright law may already offer a way to address part of the problem, suggesting a legally required payment system in which every AI response that draws on journalism triggers a payment.
Such a system would work like music royalties, with a collecting organization gathering money and distributing it among publishers and journalists, providing a starting point for individual licensing deals.
Senftleben urged Germany to act quickly, noting that it is a large member state of the EU and that the system should be introduced in Germany.
"What are we waiting for? Germany is a large member state. This should be introduced in Germany."
Tech companies' responses
Google is willing to negotiate agreements with German media companies and discuss new AI products, while its "AI Contribution" pilot rewards content that plays a significant role in answers from products like Gemini and AI Overviews.
Google says its ancillary copyright agreements cover more than 800 German publications with payments already being made, though the program is an early experiment, not a general system open to all publishers.
Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI have recently said they support clearer, standardized signals that let website owners state whether their content may be used to train AI models.
However, not everyone thinks more regulation is the answer, with Jörg Heidrich warning that Europe has already fallen behind in the global AI race and that new rules could make it harder for European companies to compete with major providers based elsewhere.
Heidrich also pointed to smaller players, including startups, independent developers and research institutions, arguing that the debate risks overlooking these groups and that new restrictions could hurt their work.
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