🔍 Read the full analysis: Why An EU Court Adviser Is Looking At AI Chatbots And Publishers’ Rights on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice that AI chatbots may infringe press publishers’ rights when they retrieve and reuse news articles in certain circumstances. His proposed test focuses on unlawful access and recognisable copying, not the reuse of facts alone; he said the example at the centre of the case does not appear to meet that test. The opinion is not binding, and the Court has not set a date for its judgment.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice on November 3 that chatbots which retrieve online news articles and reuse them in answers may infringe press publishers’ rights in some circumstances. In Case C‑250/25, Like Company v Google Ireland, he proposed that the key questions are whether a service obtained an article by getting around access restrictions and whether its answer reproduces the article’s distinctive expression closely enough to substitute for the original. His opinion is not a binding judgment.
The dispute began with a Hungarian news article published in July 2023 about a singer’s alleged plan to bring dolphins to Lake Balaton. Like Company, which operates Hungarian news websites, says Google’s Gemini chatbot later summarised the article after a user asked about it and supplied the site’s domain. The company sued Google in Hungary, alleging that its articles had been used to train Gemini and were repeatedly reproduced or made available through the chatbot between June 13, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Those are the publisher’s claims, not findings in a final judgment.
Szpunar’s proposed test separates facts from the way a journalist expresses them. Reporting the same facts as an article would not, by itself, infringe the publishers’ right, he said. An answer could cross the line if the chatbot accessed the material unlawfully—for example, by circumventing a paywall or an anti-scraping block—or if it repeated recognisable wording or structure so extensively that a user could dispense with reading the original publication. The opinion describes the latter as a situation in which a user can “dispense with accessing the original publication entirely.”
The adviser said the available circumstances in this case do not appear to satisfy those conditions: he identified no access barrier that Google had bypassed and no recognisable wording in the example answer. He also pointed to safeguards that Google appears to have in place. This is an assessment in the opinion, not a final ruling on liability; the Hungarian court will decide the dispute after the EU court answers its legal questions.
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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Where Chatbot Summaries Cross the Line
The opinion offers a possible legal framework for services that use live web searches to answer questions about news. If adopted by the Court, the approach could leave room for chatbots to summarise reporting in their own words while giving publishers a basis to object to answers that bypass restrictions or reproduce protected expression in a substitutive way. It would not give publishers control over the underlying facts simply because they reported them first.
That distinction matters to both sides of the dispute. Publishers have argued that automated services can draw value from journalism without sending readers to the original sites; a legal test tied to access and close reproduction could support licensing discussions and enforcement in specific cases. AI services, meanwhile, would face questions about how they access pages and how closely their responses track source material. The opinion does not set out a general licensing requirement for every chatbot summary, and it does not establish that Gemini infringed Like Company’s rights.
For users, the outcome could influence whether services provide short summaries, link to source pages, or adjust how they use restricted content. Those practical effects remain contingent on the Court’s eventual ruling and on how national courts apply the legal standard to evidence about a particular service and answer.
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A News-Publisher Right Meets Chatbots
The case concerns the EU’s press publishers’ right under Article 15 of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The right was designed to give publishers control over certain online uses of press publications, including uses by news aggregators. The question referred by the Hungarian court is whether and how that right applies when a chatbot retrieves a story and uses it to respond to a user.
The Hungarian court sent four questions to Luxembourg: two concerned alleged use of articles to train Gemini, and two concerned material provided in chatbot answers. Nine EU governments and the European Commission submitted written observations, and the Court held a hearing on March 10, 2026. The Court describes the matter as the first generative AI case to reach it.
On training, Szpunar’s main conclusion was procedural: he advised the Court to treat the two training questions as inadmissible because the case materials did not establish that Like Company’s articles were used in Gemini’s training data. He reasoned that the dolphin article appeared after the likely collection period for Gemini 1.0 and that the example instead appeared consistent with live retrieval from the web. Separately, he said that training on dedicated computers would not constitute the kind of online use covered by the press publishers’ right.
He added a discussion of training “for the sake of completeness,” saying that the EU text-and-data-mining exception may in principle cover such activity, subject to rights holders’ ability to opt out in a machine-readable form. That discussion is not the same as a ruling that training on these publisher’s articles occurred or was lawful. The central proposed test in the case concerns chatbot answers, not a finding about Gemini’s training data.
“The company alleges that Google used its articles to train Gemini and repeatedly reproduced and made them available through the chatbot.”
— Like Company, as described in the Court of Justice press release
The Final Ruling Is Still Pending
The Court of Justice has not yet issued its judgment, and Szpunar’s opinion does not bind the judges. The Court has not announced a decision date. The Hungarian court will ultimately resolve the dispute, including the factual questions about Google’s conduct, in light of the EU court’s interpretation.
It also remains unclear how broadly any eventual judgment will apply to different chatbot designs, sources, and access controls. The opinion’s training discussion is not a determination that Like Company’s work was included in Gemini’s training data; Szpunar advised that the training questions were inadmissible on the record before the Court. The source material also does not establish whether Google’s safeguards would satisfy the legal test in other cases.
Luxembourg’s Judges Decide Next
The Court of Justice will now consider the Advocate General’s opinion before delivering its own answer to the questions referred by the Hungarian court. No timetable has been announced. The Court’s 2025 statistics put the average duration of preliminary-reference proceedings at 16.9 months, but that figure is a general average, not a forecast for this case.
After the EU court rules, the Hungarian proceedings are expected to continue, with the national court applying the EU law interpretation to the evidence and claims before it. Until then, the proposed limits on chatbot summaries remain legal advice from an independent court adviser rather than binding EU law.
Key Questions
Has the EU Court ruled that Gemini infringed the publisher’s rights?
No. Szpunar issued a non-binding opinion on November 3, 2026. The Court of Justice has not yet given its judgment, and the Hungarian court must decide the underlying dispute.
When could a chatbot summary infringe publishers’ rights under the opinion?
Szpunar said infringement may arise if a chatbot gets an article by bypassing access restrictions, or if its answer reproduces the article’s distinctive expression so closely that users can avoid visiting the original. Reusing the same facts alone would not be enough under his proposed test.
Did the adviser find that Gemini was trained on Like Company’s articles?
No. He said the record did not support that claim and advised the Court to treat the training questions as inadmissible. His separate discussion of the text-and-data-mining exception was offered for completeness, not as a finding about the articles’ use.
What happens after the Advocate General’s opinion?
The EU Court of Justice will issue a judgment interpreting the relevant EU law. It has not set a date. The Hungarian court will then apply that interpretation to Like Company’s case.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
