Legal

AI raises legal questions that newsrooms cannot ignore: who owns AI output, what training data was used, who is liable when something goes wrong. This card surfaces those issues so a team knows what to check and when to ask a lawyer. It is a prompt to spot risk, not a substitute for legal advice.

Questions to explore

// use these as prompts in a workshop or on your own. There are no right answers.

Who owns the copyright in text or images an AI tool produces for you?
What do your tools' terms say about how they use the material you submit?
Who would be liable if an AI-assisted story contained a defamatory error?
How do you handle content that may have been trained on copyrighted work?
When does a question move from a newsroom judgment to one for a lawyer?

Expert voices

// notes from the journalists and AI experts who helped shape this kit

“What can be done within your own organization to protect the rights of your authors and creators from generative AI?”

Anastasiia Korinovska, Suspilne

“How can media protect their content from unauthorized AI training, and what policies ensure fair use and fair remuneration?”

Steffen Leidel, DW Akademie

“If AI generates false statements about real people, what are the defamation risks? Newsrooms need to protect against AI-generated legal liability.”

Lynn Khellaf, DW

“Do we allow AI robots to crawl our website, or do we block them? Licensing your content to AI systems is a decision every newsroom has to make.”

Zenzele Ndebele, Centre for Innovation and Technology (CITE)

Things to consider

Read the terms of service for tools that touch published work.
Treat this card as a way to spot legal risk, not to resolve it.
When ownership or liability is unclear, ask a lawyer before publishing.

using this card

Pull Legal when it is relevant and set it aside when it is not. Pair it with the other AI Conversations cards, lay them out on a table, and use the questions above to get everyone on the same page. Capture what you discuss on sticky notes or in a shared doc.