Google’s Vast Copyright Licenses Could Complicate AI Class Suit

Google LLC‘s broad copyright licenses for the content that flows over its many platforms could complicate class certification for authors and artists suing the tech giant for using their works to train its generative AI models.

Judge Eumi K. Lee at a hearing Friday in San Jose, Calif., federal court grappled with whether it would be practical, or even possible, to group the claims of potentially thousands of authors and visual artists into a set of different classes.

The hearing put on center stage Google’s vast trove of existing licenses for content across its platforms, ranging from Google search ...