BBC threatens AI companies to be confused about unauthorized use of news content
The BBC issued a legal warning to US artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of copying BBC content without permission and asking the company to stop using its materials, delete existing data and make financial compensation.
This marks the first time the BBC has threatened legal action against AI companies, due to concerns about how generative AI tools can be used in protected journalism.
In a letter sent directly to confusing CEO Aravind Srinivas, the broadcaster claimed that the company’s AI-powered chatbot is introducing users to gradual BBC content to violate UK copyright laws and the BBC’s terms of use. The company claims the activity is damaging its reputation, especially in UK licensing fees, by generating summary of inaccurate or misleading news coverage.
The letter stated: “This has severely damaged the BBC, hurting the BBC’s reputation among the audience… and undermining their trust in the BBC.”
The legal move comes after a BBC study earlier this year, finding that several major AI tools, including confusion, often misrepresented news coverage, involving the BBC’s editorial standards, involving impartiality and accuracy.
In a brief statement, Confusion dismissed these claims, saying: “The BBC’s claim is just another part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will take any steps to safeguard Google’s illegal monopoly.”
The company did not clarify how it believes Google is related to the BBC’s legal issues, nor did it provide further explanation.
At the heart of the dispute is the practice of cyber scratching, where robots extract content from the website (usually without explicit permission) to train or feed AI models. While robots.txt files are often used to indicate that bots do not access certain content, compliance is voluntary and many reports indicate that some AI companies ignore these restrictions.
The BBC said it had explicitly banned two confused crawlers, but claimed the company continued to scratch its content anyway.
Confused to deny the violation of robots before. txt rule. In a June 2024 interview with Fast Company, CEO Srinivas claimed that his robot complies with such directives and that the company does not use content to train the underlying model, noting that it can be used as a “real-time answer engine.”
The chatbot provides users with aggregated query answers, launching and synthesizing real-time information from the web – according to confusion, this process does not involve the same training process used by large language model developers.
Nevertheless, the BBC and other media organizations believe that this real-time scratching and content repackaging represents a serious violation of intellectual property rights. The BBC’s position was responded by the Professional Publishers Association (PPA), which represents more than 300 British media brands.
The current AI practice is “very concerned” in a statement, warning that unauthorized use of publishers’ content to power AI tools poses a threat to the £4.4 billion publishing industry in the UK and its 55,000 people employed.
“This approach directly threatens the UK’s publishing industry and journalism IT funding,” the PPA said.
The BBC’s attitude deadlock has been exacerbated by aggravated tensions between news organizations and generative AI companies. Despite AI chatbots such as Openai’s Chatgpt, Google’s Gemini and confusing assistants, they have been criticized for making misleading summary, failing to credit raw resources or shifting traffic from publishers that create content.
In January, Apple suspended the AI-powered feature after a complaint from the broadcaster that caused misleading BBC headlines on the iPhone.
Quentin Willson, founder of the Faircharge movement and former top tier host, said the unauthorized use of news content poses a risk to trusted media organizations.
“If AI is scratched and reflected on a proven journalism industry without consent or compensation, then the business model of serious news collapses,” he said.
While many publishers have begun signing licensing agreements with AI companies, including the Associated Press, Axel Springer and News Corp, others have taken legal action. The New York Times is currently suing Openai and Microsoft, and more lawsuits are expected as technology advances.
Currently, the BBC requires the cessation of unauthorized use, the complete removal of scratched data and financial compensation. Whether formal legal processes are followed can set a major precedent in the global struggle against AI and journalism.
