Google AI chatbot’s use of press items may infringe copyright rules, EU court adviser says

• EU adviser Maciej Szpunar said Google’s Gemini chatbot may infringe copyright when it reuses press stories in answers, especially if it bypasses paywalls or copies the publisher’s wording.
• He said copyright protects the “specific form of expression”, not “mere facts”, while training large language models on protected material is “freely permitted” under the text and data mining exception.
• The case, brought by Hungarian website Like Company, could force Google to pay fees and help online media that have lost traffic to AI chatbots, though the adviser’s view is not binding.

BRUSSELS – Google’s use of press stories in its Gemini chatbot to respond to queries from internet users can infringe copyright rules in certain circumstances, an adviser to Europe’s highest court said on Nov 3.

Advocate General Maciej Szpunar is advising the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union in a case brought by Hungarian website operator Like Company against Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini.

A ruling against Google, forcing the tech giant to pay fees for the use of their content could send a lifeline to online media, such as Like Company. They have seen traffic dwindle as news summaries written by AI chatbots like Gemini increasingly replace traditional search engines’ results which include hyperlinks.

“When an LLM (large language model)-driven chatbot retrieves a publication from a press publisher’s website, reuses that publication to generate an answer, and provides that answer to the user, the press publisher’s right may be infringed in certain circumstances,” Szpunar said, according to a court statement.

Gemini’s answers fall under the publishers’ right of reproduction when chatbots get access to publications by unlawfully circumventing paywalls or other technical barriers, or when they reuse “the form of expression of that publication in a recognisable manner”, he said.

Copyright rules do not protect the “mere facts” reported by press publications, but “only the specific form of expression”, he added.

On the other hand, he said the use of material protected by copyright to train large language models – AI systems that use vast amounts of text to generate human-like responses and summarise information – is “freely permitted under the text and data mining exception”.

Opinions of the advocate general are not binding, but are usually followed by the court’s judges. REUTERS