Fighting pigs, and AI courtroom mud-slinging - we love to see it

Two events this week could have long term consequences for how the future of AI and content thievery plays out. As well as being very entertaining to watch unfold.

by Rich Fairbairn

Published: 15:12, 16 July 2026

There is a particular institutional hubris which guffs up the boardroom air of the big tech giants in San Francisco, which has helped them evolve their own immunity to irony over the last few decades.

Luckily, the rest of us normies are here to point it out and enjoy it.

I’m drawn towards two stories this week, which together may have an important say over which direction the AI bros are forced to head, one involving a German regulator and the other a Californian courtroom. 

Together they may not correct a generation of ills, but they at least grab the attention of those who look forward to seeing a box set comeuppance of a long-resented antagonist in a drama that has gone on way too long. George Bernard Shaw may have warned about wrestling with a pig, but in this case we're the spectators not the participants.

Loud declarations of intent
First up, bombshells aplenty after the media regulator of Germany, ZAK, agreed with a German court decision earlier in June that outputs from Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity’s AI are subject to German media law. The ZAK ruling defines them as content providers, not neutral intermediaries, and thus makes them liable for what their AIs say and create. Auf Wiedersehen, Section 230?

ZAK Chairman Thorsten Schmiege spelled out that “AI search engines and chatbots are content providers, and we will consistently apply German media law to them from now on," which is quite the shift for AI firms who say they bear no responsibility for what their priceless offerings regularly spit out in feeble-minded moments.

This came off the back of a German court ruling which said Google was liable for inaccurate info and hallucinations produced by AI Overviews, which we said at the time could be the stone in the shoe which finally knocks some sense into the people behind AI thievery.

The other story involves Apple suing OpenAI for, err… stealing trade secrets. The earbud and phone firm, whose entire brand mythology more or less rests on the alleged genius of its IP, has filed suit against OpenAI for stealing hardware designs, manufacturing techniques, and supply chain intelligence.

Given that more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, one can only look forward to how Apple’s lawyers will describe in court how the migration of institutional knowledge was apparently not just career advancement and instead represented something more planned.

The Apple suit characterises it as a coordinated effort encouraged by OpenAI, rather than opportunistic data theft or simple memories of things they have seen but could not ascribe to a source, perhaps like walking through an art gallery, or Xerox’s PARC facility in the 1970s.

Big Tech spiderman meme
Creative appropriation dressed up as innovation is the stock in trade for the pair and plenty like them but while this might look like Apple is suing its own reflection, in this fight most commentators are siding with Apple against a firm which could easily win the award for being the world’s biggest thief of ideas.

The student has learned from the master, and the master is furious - and has more money in the bank for lawyers. OpenAI disputes the claims.

For the rest of us, the impact on Google, Perplexity, and OpenAI are worth following. Both stories describe products built on purloinery facing rules which they assumed would never apply to them.

Beyond the “Who me?” defence, where do they go?

The ZAK ruling makes Google and Perplexity accountable as content providers, which may spur on the talks to pay for what they use. We can cross our fingers it inspires others.

The Apple lawsuit will take years, but in its most impactful outcomes could point to the end of an era in which AI firms hoovered up whatever they liked without consequence.

Discovery will be a peach for Apple and the rest of us.