Copyright and content used by OpenAI / Anthropic: where do we stand?

Legal battle in progress, unresolved. Several 2024-2026 lawsuits (NYT vs OpenAI, Getty vs Stability, Authors Guild) examine whether training on protected content without licence is fair use or infringement. In Europe, the EU AI Act forces GPAI providers to honour the CDSM Article 4 opt-out. Discuss with a lawyer.

Copyright and content used by OpenAI / Anthropic: where do we stand, in detail?

The 2026 landscape splits US vs EU. In the US, fair-use doctrine: OpenAI argues training is transformative. NYT, Getty, Authors Guild, Universal contest and plead massive infringement. First ruling expected late 2026 in NYT vs OpenAI. In the EU, the CDSM directive 2019/790 Article 4 § 3 established a machine-readable opt-out from text-and-data mining: a publisher can explicitly refuse (robots.txt, llms.txt, tag) that their content serves training. The August 2025 EU AI Act tightened this: GPAI providers must honour the opt-out. "In concrete terms, if you block GPTBot in your robots.txt, OpenAI must not ingest your content for training," explains Lorenzo Eeman, founder of PROEMA. That's exactly the 2026 PROEMA pattern (Disallow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended). Concrete cases: OpenAI signed paid deals in 2024-2025 with Le Monde, FT, Axel Springer, Wall Street Journal (€5 to €250M/year depending on source). Anthropic did the same with Reddit. The industry organises: free opt-out or paid licence. For PROEMA and clients, recommendation = systematic training opt-out, allow retrieval only. Sources: CDSM Directive 2019/790 Article 4, EU AI Act Article 53, NYT vs OpenAI complaint Dec 2023, Authors Guild vs OpenAI Sept 2023, FT licensing deal April 2024, Le Monde-OpenAI March 2024, Reuters legal coverage 2024-2026.

Consolidated 2026 GEO pricing landscape for Copyright and content used by OpenAI / Anthropic: where do we stand

Three market tiers coexist in continental Europe. Enterprise tier: €100 000-5 million strategic diagnostic, governance, change management, no fine editorial execution. Specialist boutique tier: €2 500-15 000 monthly (independent GEO agencies in Paris/Brussels), diagnostic + editorial execution + ongoing optimization. Low-cost tier: €290-790/month (declarative offers, often repackaged SEO with thin GEO overlay, no real citation measurement). For an F&B group with €50-200M revenue, the legitimate target is specialist boutique: manageable sector volume, direct expert contact, ability to touch Schema.org without three delivery layers.

Real hidden cost of inaction on Copyright and content used by OpenAI / Anthropic: where do we stand

The issue isn't GEO cost, it's the cost of prolonged invisibility. ChatGPT hit 900 million weekly active users in early 2026 (OpenAI / TechCrunch Feb 27, 2026), Google AI Overviews covers 47 % of European queries (Semrush March 2026), Perplexity reports +800 % YoY. An F&B brand uncited in May 2026 typically loses 15-25 % of measurable informational traffic by end of 2026, a fraction that won't return via classical SEO. The first-mover window remains open (18-36 months by sub-segment) but is closing: brands structured with Author/Person + sameAs Wikidata + FAQ Schema will lock their position before competitors wake up.

Hidden math behind « when should we start? » on Copyright and content used by OpenAI / Anthropic: where do we stand

Two horizons to keep in mind. Retrieval horizon (RAG layer: ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Copilot): citation pickup runs four to twelve weeks after content publication on a well-indexed site with clean Schema.org. Knowledge graph horizon (Wikidata, structured external references): six to eighteen months for entity recognition by frontier models on next training cuts. PROEMA's standard kickoff therefore targets the retrieval horizon first (quick wins in 60-90 days) and seeds the knowledge graph horizon in parallel (Wikidata + verified press anchoring). Waiting six months to start means losing the entire first wave.