Rolling Stone Publisher Penske Media Sues Google Over AI Summaries

Penske Media Corp. (PMC), the parent company of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter, has filed a lawsuit against Google LLC, accusing the tech giant of abusing its search monopoly to exploit publishers’ journalism for free while strengthening its artificial intelligence products.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, focuses on Google’s new AI Overviews — summaries that appear at the top of search results. PMC alleges these overviews lift content without permission, diverting readers away from original reporting and cutting into publishers’ traffic and revenue streams.

The company further claims Google conditions access to essential search referral traffic on publishers handing over snippets, content for AI training, and material for retrieval-augmented generation, a practice PMC says amounts to unlawful reciprocal dealing under the Sherman Act.

“As a leading global publisher, we have a duty to protect PMC’s best-in-class journalists and award-winning journalism as a source of truth. Furthermore, we have a responsibility to proactively fight for the future of digital media and preserve its integrity — all of which is threatened by Google’s current actions,” CEO Jay Penske said in a statement.

PMC is seeking treble damages, restitution, and a permanent injunction against Google’s practices. In response, Google spokesperson José Castañeda said AI Overviews “create new opportunities for content to be discovered,” adding: “We will defend against these meritless claims.”

Recently, AI Startup Anthropic reached a resolution in a high-stakes class action lawsuit brought by prominent U.S. authors, marking one of the most significant settlements in the ongoing battle over AI copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleged Anthropic downloaded as many as 7 million pirated books to train its large language models, exposing the company to catastrophic damages.