Ashley MacIsaac sues Google for $1.5M over AI Overview sex-crime mixup

Maritime musician Ashley MacIsaac is used to a rough ride in the public eye.

During a frequently controversial career, the Cape Breton-born fiddler’s political views, sexuality, pre-legalization cannabis use and on-stage antics have all prompted salacious coverage, some of which MacIsaac has taken issue with.

But the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of a planned December 2025 gig at Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia were unlike anything MacIsaac – or really anyone in the country – has ever experienced.

According to a statement of claim recently filed by MacIsaac in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the concert was called off after complaints from community members who had seen Google AI Overview descriptions falsely suggesting that MacIsaac had been sentenced for “sexual assault and internet luring” and placed on a sex offender registry for 20 years, among other erroneous statements.

“I’ve had to deal in the past with human reporters taking an angle, but this is a different scenario. It’s not an individual, it’s a mega company – one of the largest in the world – that decided it was OK to label me a sex offender,” MacIsaac said in an interview from his home in Windsor, Ont. “I felt like the only way forward was for me to follow through as far as I can in the Canadian legal system.”

MacIsaac is seeking at least $1.5 million in damages, alleging that Google is liable for the AI Overview’s statements, as well as the “foreseeable republication” that resulted in the concert cancellation.

“As the creator and operator of the AI Overview, Google is also liable for injuries and losses arising from the AI Overview’s defective design,” the claim continues, alleging that the tech giant had not taken reasonable steps to prevent harm to individuals when its AI system returns false information.

The $1.5m total includes a claim for aggravated and punitive damages, which the musician alleges is justified by Google’s “cavalier and indifferent response to its publication of utterly false statements.”

“If a human spokesperson made these false allegations on Google’s behalf a significant award of punitive damages would be warranted. Google should not have lesser liability because the Defamatory Statements were published by software that Google created and controls,” the claim reads.

In press coverage at the time of the concert cancellation, a Google spokesperson pointed out that the search results linking MacIsaac to the criminal offences no longer appeared in the AI Overview, adding that: “When issues arise — like if our features misinterpret web content or miss some context — we use those examples to improve our systems, and may take action under our policies.”

However, MacIsaac’s claim says that the company did not reach out to him at that time to offer an apology or retraction. None of the allegations in MacIsaac’s statement of claim have been proven in court. Neither Google nor its Canadian legal counsel responded to the National Post’s requests for a fresh comment on the case.

Currently, AI Overviews for Google searches including Ashley MacIsaac’s name reference the now-removed errors, while a search for sexual offences committed by a Newfoundland man with the same surname returns a warning that they have been incorrectly linked to the musician. Many AI Overviews also include a disclaimer at the bottom of the warns users that “AI responses may include mistakes.”

In an interview with the National Post, MacIsaac says he was inundated with offers of legal help from around the world after the first wave of stories about the concert cancellation.

However, he stuck with the very first lawyer to reach out to him: Gabriel Latner of Toronto firm Advocan LLP.

“I spoke to Gabriel and he told me he’s married to a Cape Bretoner. I figured that’s good enough for me,” MacIsaac says.

Part of the reason he proceeded with the lawsuit is for the protection of others without his public profile, MacIsaac adds. “The bigger argument is about whether Google has prevented that type of problem from happening to Joe Smith or whoever else,” he says. “It’s dangerous when you’re labelled like this and people can do some pretty crazy things.”

“Small disclaimers aren’t what people see when you type in a name and see confabulations of headlines that are completely inaccurate and can endanger somebody’s livelihood; somebody’s safety.”

Despite the anguish his recent AI experience has caused him, MacIsaac says it won’t stop him from experimenting with the technology.

“I myself use AI,” he says. “I don’t see that the downside of AI should supersede the benefits, but I believe that AI as a technology must have guardrails to prevent things like what has happened to me.”

Although he’s not involved in the MacIsaac case, Howard Winkler, a veteran media and defamation lawyer with more than 40 years of experience behind him, will be watching proceedings closely as they progress through the court system.

“The claim is very, very significant, and stands to have a big impact on the liability of AI product in the area of defamation,” Winkler says.

Since 2011, when the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark judgment in a case known as Crookes v. Newton , Winkler explains that internet users of all sizes – from search engine giants to lone bloggers – have enjoyed a great deal of protection from liability when linking to defamatory material.

In that case, a majority of the nation’s top court ruled that hyperlinking to a defamatory statement does not constitute “publication” of the material, as long as the hyperlink itself does not repeat or endorse the defamatory material.

Earlier this year, the Quebec Court of Appeal punctured a hole in Google’s usual defamation defence, upholding a trial judge’s decision that Crookes did not apply in the case of Quebec businessman targeted by false claims online. The province’s appeal court ordered the search engine to pay the businessman $1.5 million for continuing to index a link to false allegations of a criminal conviction for child molestation, even after the man provided proof that he had never been convicted of any sex crime.

According to Winkler, this decision may not have much influence beyond the borders of Quebec, since the result turned on provisions in the province’s Civil Code that expose technology intermediaries to liability once they become aware that their services are being used for illicit activity.

However, Winkler says that Google may have trouble convincing a judge that the Crookes case applies to the facts of MacIsaac’s claim, which remain to be proven in court.

“The AI Overview is reviewing content from the internet and publishing its own summary. Under those circumstances, I find it hard to imagine that Google will be able to escape the conclusion that it is a publication and that they are the publisher,” Winkler says.

He’s keeping his fingers crossed that the case makes it to trial for a decision on the merits.

“In terms of finding a good case to establish new law, this is a great one,” Winkler says.

“One of the societal issues that needs to be grappled with respect to AI generally is…from a policy perspective, when it messes up, whether it’s for fair for those that are harmed to be compensated,” he adds. “For Google, paying to compensate those people it harms is – and should be – a cost of doing business.”

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