🔍 Read the full analysis: The EU Debate Over AI Chatbots, Facts And Protected Writing on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
On November 3, 2026, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice that chatbots retrieving and reusing news articles may infringe publishers’ rights in certain circumstances. He said the facts alone are not protected and, applying his test to the Gemini example at issue, the conditions for infringement do not appear to be met. The opinion is not binding; the court has yet to rule.
The European Union’s top court has been advised that AI chatbots may infringe press publishers’ rights when they retrieve and reuse online news articles, but only under specific conditions. In an opinion issued November 3, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said infringement could arise if a system bypasses access restrictions or reproduces an article’s distinctive expression so extensively that users can avoid reading the original; he said those conditions do not appear to apply to the Gemini example in the case.
The case, Like Company v Google Ireland (C‑250/25), began after Like Company, which operates Hungarian news websites, sued Google. The dispute concerns a Gemini response summarising a Hungarian article about a singer’s reported plan to bring dolphins to Lake Balaton. The publisher argued that Google used its articles to train Gemini and repeatedly reproduced and made them available through the chatbot between June 13, 2023, and May 31, 2024, according to the Court of Justice’s press release.
Szpunar’s opinion distinguishes between facts and the way an article expresses them. A chatbot does not infringe the publishers’ right merely by reporting the same facts as a news story, he said. The risk arises if it obtains the material unlawfully—for example, by getting around a paywall or anti-scraping measure—or if its answer preserves enough of the article’s form of expression that a user can dispense with the original publication.
On the example before him, Szpunar said the conditions for infringement do not appear to be met: the article was not behind access barriers, the sample answer did not appear to reproduce recognisable wording, and Google seemed to have safeguards. That is his assessment, not a final finding by the court. He advised the Court to treat the questions about training as inadmissible because the case did not establish that the article was used to train Gemini.
Infographic 01 · Where the line runs
When a chatbot answer infringes a publisher's right
Advocate General Szpunar's test in Case C‑250/25 for chatbots that retrieve news articles in real time and reuse them in their answers.
Stays free
- Reporting the same facts. Nobody owns the news itself (pts 199–200).
- A short factual summary, presented differently (pt 208).
- An overview built from several sources, restructured, with links back (pts 208, 234).
- Individual words or very short extracts (pt 201).
Can infringe
- Getting around a paywall or anti-scraping block to fetch the article (pt 188).
- An answer that keeps the article’s structure and phrasing, even paraphrased, so readers can skip the original (pts 202, 205, 207).
- Systematically recognisable articles in answers to related questions: making available to the public (pts 213, 240).
The test, step by step
For a chatbot that fetches a news article live (RAG) and answers a user
- Is it an online use by a service in the EU?Yes for RAG answers to EU users, wherever the servers are (pts 165–169).
- Did the bot get in lawfully?No circumvention of effective technical measures (pt 188).
- Is the article’s form of expression recognisable in the answer, to the point of substitution?Side-by-side comparison; facts do not count (pts 196–209).
- Is the provider responsible?If inherent to its business model, or no reasonable measures such as respecting blocks and output filters (pts 221–222).
- Temporary copies during retrieval are then exempt under Art. 5(1) InfoSoc; the TDM exception does not apply to RAG (pts 179–189).
An Advocate General’s opinion, not a judgment. General information, not legal advice.
Sources: Opinion of AG Szpunar, C‑250/25 (provisional text), CURIA press release No 155/26 (3 Nov 2026). Point numbers refer to the provisional text.
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Limits on Chatbot News Reuse
The opinion sets out a possible boundary between summarising reporting and substituting for it. If the Court adopts the approach, publishers would not gain control over facts or every AI-generated account of a news event. Their case would be stronger where a service circumvents technical or contractual barriers, or where an answer closely retains a publication’s distinctive expression and removes the need to consult it.
For AI companies and news organisations, the distinction could shape content licensing, access controls and answer design. Services using live web retrieval may need to pay attention to restrictions on access and to whether their outputs function as substitutes for the underlying articles. Publishers could have a basis to challenge some uses, but the opinion does not give them a general monopoly over news or establish that every chatbot summary requires a licence.
Readers may also feel the effects in how AI search and chatbot tools present news, including the amount of original text reproduced and the links or source references provided. These are possible consequences of the proposed legal test, not outcomes already ordered by the court.
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From Gemini Summary to EU Court
Like Company brought its case before a Hungarian court, which referred four questions to Luxembourg: two concerning AI training and two concerning chatbot answers. The EU press publishers’ right, set out in Article 15(1) of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, was introduced to let publishers control and license certain online uses of their publications, including excerpts used by news aggregators. The dispute asks whether that right also reaches generative chatbot responses.
Szpunar’s main response on training was procedural: he said the questions were hypothetical because the record did not show that the articles were part of Gemini’s training data. The dolphin article was published in July 2023, while Gemini 1.0 was released in December that year. The opinion says the chatbot could have summarised the article by retrieving it from the web at the time of the query, rather than relying on training data. It also reasons that training on dedicated computers is not the kind of online use covered by the publishers’ right.
Separately, and expressly for completeness, Szpunar discussed the EU’s text-and-data-mining exception. He considered that it generally covers AI training in principle, subject to rights holders’ ability to reserve their rights in a machine-readable form. This discussion is not the operative answer to the case’s training questions, which he recommended dismissing as inadmissible.
Court Ruling Still Pending
The Advocate General’s opinion is not binding. The Court of Justice will issue the judgment, and it has not announced a date. It may follow the advice or take a different approach. The final ruling will determine how the proposed test applies to the dispute.
Other points remain unresolved in the proceedings. The Hungarian court will have to assess the evidence and decide the underlying case. The opinion does not establish that Gemini used Like Company’s articles for training; Szpunar said the record did not support that premise. Nor does his general discussion of the text-and-data-mining exception amount to a final court ruling on every training practice or on the effect of a rights reservation.
Awaiting Luxembourg’s Judgment
The immediate next step is the Court of Justice’s judgment in Case C‑250/25. Once the court rules, the Hungarian court can apply its interpretation of EU law to Like Company’s claims and the evidence in the national proceedings. No judgment date has been set.
Until then, the legal test remains an adviser’s recommendation rather than settled law. The case will be watched by publishers and AI providers because it addresses how a copyright rule created for online use of press material applies to chatbot answers built from live web retrieval.
Key Questions
Has the EU Court ruled that Gemini infringed the publisher’s rights?
No. Szpunar issued a non-binding opinion, and the Court of Justice has not yet delivered its judgment. He said infringement conditions did not appear to be met in the example described.
When could a chatbot answer infringe press publishers’ rights?
Under the Advocate General’s proposed approach, possible infringement could arise if a chatbot gets around access barriers or reproduces an article’s expression so recognisably that users can avoid the original publication. Repeating the same facts alone would not be enough.
Did the opinion find that Gemini was trained on Like Company’s articles?
No. Szpunar said the record did not show that the articles were in Gemini’s training data and recommended that the training questions be treated as inadmissible.
What happens next in the case?
The Court of Justice will issue its judgment, with no date announced. The Hungarian court will then decide the publisher’s case under the EU law interpretation given by the Court.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
