Online News Act undermines outlets’ ability to prevent AI scraping, copyright violations, Parliamentary committee told

Canada’s efforts to regulate digital giants through the Online News Act, formerly known as Bill C-18, is effectively forcing domestic news publishers to surrender control over paywalled content to Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems, according to testimony heard during a Parliamentary committee study. The House committee on Canadian heritage kicked off its study of the effects of AI on Canada’s creative industries Monday, Oct. 6, with appearances from cultural advocates, researchers, and a news publisher. Witnesses called for a comprehensive regulatory framework that addresses the risks AI poses to rightsholders by enforcing copyright, mandating transparency, and encouraging competition. Rudyard Griffiths, publisher of independent news outlet The Hub, detailed how the regulatory framework surrounding the Online News Act creates what he argues is an anti-competitive environment favouring dominant tech platforms. Under the act, Google agreed to provide $100 million in funding to Canadian news groups. However, Griffiths stated that a condition of receiving these funds through the journalism collective requires news recipients to make all of their content available to Google. According to the contribution agreement between the Canadian Journalism Collective and Google, the collective and its members must not “initiate or participate in” any action against Google related to "infringement of copyright in relation to making available news content of members by in the manner permitted by the act.” This requirement effectively means that news organizations receiving funding from Google are unable to prevent Google’s AI bots from scraping their content, even if it is hidden behind a paywall and intended for subscribers. Users can then access that paywalled content by asking the AI to summarize it. Blocking Google’s AI bots from accessing a website’s subscriber-only content can lead to that website being blocked from Google search results or deranked, Griffiths added. “That is not competitive, that is anti-competitive, that is the abuse of a monopolistic position in a marketplace by a company who is absolutely dominant in the search category,” said Griffiths, noting that Google’s share of the Canadian search engine market is almost 90 per cent. “There's a huge issue that needs to be taken up there, a question of real fundamental fairness…,” he asserted. Griffiths described the Online News Act as a “cautionary tale,” demonstrating the challenges of regulating a fast-changing environment. He noted that news organizations are now compelled to “live within that act” unless it is amended to grant them greater flexibility to protect and monetize their content from large language models (LLMs) and search platforms. He argued the situation removes any bargaining power publishers might have had to negotiate fair terms for their content's value to Google’s AI services. Many news act fund recipients are effectively “under the thumb of Google,” the publisher said, stressing that the act forces news outlets to sign over copyright protection to Google. The broader challenge facing publishers is that AI overviews and AI search modes now enable “zero-click” searches, allowing users to access necessary information directly from the search page without visiting the original website. Wary of potential overregulation, Griffiths advocated for a regulatory approach focused on fostering fair competition and increasing productivity, suggesting that eliminating existing subsidies and support for the news industry might force innovation. “I think that your throughline through this debate should be, where is competition enabled and where is competition thwarted?,” Griffiths told the committee. He also added that strengthening Canadian copyright law could help address some of the “big challenges in terms of asserting issues of transparency and fairness.” Cultural organizations echoed concerns about the unauthorized use of creative works for training AI models. Marie-Julie Desrochers, executive director of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, highlighted that generative AI is making many jobs in the arts increasingly fragile. The coalition, representing more than 350,000 creators and artists, emphasized three “pillars” for regulating AI’s impact on creative industries: authorization, compensation, and transparency. Transparency was highlighted as a critical need among the witnesses because artists often suffer a “denial of rights” when they do not know which of their protected works were used to train AI models, said Copibec public affairs advisor Maryse Beaulieu in French. The groups called for regulations that would address this, with Copibec assistant general manager Arezki Raab proposing AI companies be mandated to provide a “sufficiently detailed summary” of the data they use, mirroring provisions seen in the European Union. The discussion also explored the potential existential risk posed by AI to artists. Dave Anctil, a researcher with the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technologies, noted that non-artists can use AI to generate content and market it, creating unfair competition against professionals who spend their lives developing talent. To combat these threats, Anctil emphasized a human-centric approach to AI development, accusing digital giants of having “absolutely no consideration for vulnerable people or vulnerable industries, and even less so for small cultural interests in Quebec and Canada.” He urged the committee to establish a regulatory framework mandating that “synthetic productions are clearly identified as such” to ensure transparency and guard against disinformation. Anctil emphasized the existing “unequal power relationship” between Canadian industries and large multinational corporations, warning that if the government fails to protect against the theft of data, Canada's cultural and national sovereignty will be under threat. The witnesses stressed that while AI is a useful tool, the problem lies in the digital infrastructure being controlled by a few powerful, non-Canadian players. The goal, they said, should not be to inhibit or avoid technological improvement, but to ensure that AI is developed in a way that respects cultural diversity and sovereignty. phalentm@thewirereport.ca

Online News Act undermines outlets’ ability to prevent AI scraping, copyright violations, Parliamentary committee told

Regulatory |
By Phalen Tynes-MacDonald
|October 8, 2025

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Online News Act undermines outlets’ ability to prevent AI scraping, copyright violations, Parliamentary committee told

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