Last year, the Liberal government passed the Online News Act, which requires some tech companies to negotiate licensing agreements with news publishers to use their content.
It will be up to Canada's broadcasting regulator to determine if AI services are reproducing news as defined in the law, said Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge's office. Meta said it remains exempt from the law because its AI system draws from sources across the web that are not restricted by the legislation.
ChatGPT uses publicly available information from a variety of news sources, including Canadian news sites, the chatbot said. This includes includes accessing information from websites, articles and other online resources. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was recently asked on a New York Times technology podcast if the law should be expanded to encompass AI — and get such companies to pay for Canadian news."What I want is not for government to legislate what platforms should do or not do, because that's a recipe for disaster. We all know how slow governments end up working," he said on the Hard Fork podcast.
When it comes to the Online News Act specifically, Canadian Heritage has previously said the law would apply to just two companies: Google and Meta.