Digest: French Publishers File Lawsuit Against Meta; Watchdog Concludes UK Mobile Browser Market is Failing

Today’s digest looks at a new lawsuit against Meta brought forward by French publishers, the Competition Markets Authority’s latest conclusions regarding the UK’s mobile browser and cloud gaming markets, as well as YouTube experimenting with a feature which automatically sends videos for human review.  

French Publishers File Lawsuit Against Meta

Leading publishing and authors’ associations in France have filed a lawsuit against Meta over allegedly using their copyrighted content to train its AI models without authorisation. The lawsuit accuses them of copyright infringement and economic “parasitism”. Those involved in bringing forward the lawsuit include the National Publishing Union, the National Union of Authors and Composes, and the Society of Men of Letters. This marks the first lawsuit in France against an AI giant. As it stands, OpenAI faces the most lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement for its AI training. It faces legal action from several corners of the globe, including publishers in the US, Canada, and India. 

Watchdog Concludes UK Mobile Browser Industry is Failing Consumers

In the antitrust arena, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published its final report into the UK’s mobile browsers and cloud gaming markets. The inquiry finds that mobile browser markets are not working well for UK businesses or consumers. It concludes that growth and innovation in the market is being held back. Following the CMA’s provisional report into the matter, it opened investigations in January into whether Apple and Google should be designated as having strategic market status (SMS) in the mobile browser sector – these ongoing investigations are expected to conclude later this year. The final report recommends that if the tech giants are found to have SMS, the watchdog should consider imposing interventions such as enabling users to actively choose their preferred mobile browser.  The CMA has maintained its conclusion from the previous report published that no further action needs to be taken for the cloud gaming industry. 

YouTube Experiments with Further Human Reviews

YouTube is experimenting with a feature which automatically sends videos with a “limited or no ads” rating for an additional human review, a company post shares. The feature aims to improve ad suitability for content on the platform. The YouTube team states that newly uploaded videos may be reviewed, in some cases, even if their visibility is set to private. It warns that monetisation decisions could take up to 24 hours. The feature is first being rolled out to a small number of creators.