🔍 Read the full analysis: What An EU Court Adviser’s View On AI Chatbots Means For Publishers on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
On Nov. 3, 2026, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice that chatbot answers using press articles may infringe publishers’ rights if the material was accessed unlawfully or the answer closely reproduces the article’s expression. He said those conditions do not appear to apply to the Gemini example at the centre of the case. The opinion is nonbinding; the Court of Justice has not set a date for its judgment.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the Court of Justice of the European Union on Nov. 3 that AI chatbots which retrieve and reuse news articles in their answers may infringe publishers’ rights in certain circumstances. In Case C‑250/25, Like Company v Google Ireland, he said infringement may arise if a chatbot bypasses access restrictions or reproduces an article’s distinctive wording so extensively that users can avoid reading the original. His opinion is not binding, and he said the conditions do not appear to be present in the Gemini example behind the dispute.
The case stems from a summary Gemini produced in Hungarian of a July 2023 article about a singer’s reported plan to bring dolphins to a pool on the Tihany peninsula at Lake Balaton. Hungarian publisher Like Company, which operates several news portals, sued Google in a Budapest court. It alleged that Google used its articles to train Gemini and repeatedly reproduced or made them available through the chatbot between June 13, 2023, and May 31, 2024, according to the EU court’s account of the case.
Szpunar’s proposed test for chatbot answers focuses on both how a service obtains an article and what it gives users. A chatbot may infringe if it reaches a page unlawfully, such as by bypassing a paywall or anti-scraping measure. It may also infringe if its answer reproduces the article’s form of expression in a way that lets a user dispense with the original. By contrast, repeating the same facts is not, on its own, enough under the opinion.
For the example before the court, Szpunar said those conditions do not appear to be satisfied: the article had no access barrier, the example answer did not appear to reproduce recognisable wording, and Google appeared to have safeguards. The Hungarian court will apply the law to the dispute after the EU court answers its questions. The EU court described the case as the first generative AI case to reach it.
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 sketches a distinction with practical consequences for publishers and AI services: copyright protection may reach a chatbot’s access to an article or its reuse of the article’s expression, but it does not give publishers ownership over the underlying news facts. That could leave services room to summarise events while creating legal risk for systems that evade restrictions or provide answers that substitute for the source article.
For publishers, the proposed approach offers a possible basis to challenge some chatbot uses and negotiate licences, without establishing a general right to control every mention of reported facts. For companies developing AI search and chatbots, it points to the importance of respecting technical access controls and avoiding answer formats that function as close substitutes for publishers’ work. These are implications of an adviser’s opinion, not settled rules from a final judgment.
Readers could also be affected if services respond to legal or licensing pressure by linking more prominently to sources, limiting the detail in answers, or drawing on multiple publications. The opinion does not require any particular product change, and it does not settle how the Court of Justice will interpret the publishers’ right.
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How the Gemini Dispute Reached Luxembourg
Like Company brought its claim under the press publishers’ right created by Article 15(1) of the EU’s 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The right was designed to let publishers control and license certain online uses of press publications; the opinion recalls that lawmakers had news aggregators such as Google News in mind. The question now is whether, and how, that right applies to chatbot responses.
The Budapest court referred four questions to Luxembourg: two concerning AI training and two concerning chatbot answers. Nine EU governments and the European Commission submitted written observations, and the hearing took place on March 10, 2026. Szpunar advised the EU court on the legal questions; the national court remains responsible for deciding the underlying case.
On training, Szpunar’s main position was procedural: he recommended that the two questions be ruled inadmissible because the record did not establish that Like Company’s articles were used to train Gemini. The dolphin story appeared in July 2023, while Gemini 1.0 was released in December 2023. He considered live web retrieval a more plausible explanation for the summary. He also reasoned that training on dedicated computers is not the kind of online use covered by the press publishers’ right. Separately, and not as a necessary answer to the case, he discussed the EU text-and-data-mining exception, which he said covers training in principle, subject to applicable rules such as rights holders’ ability to opt out in a machine-readable form.
“The case is “the first generative AI case to reach the Court of Justice.””
— Court of Justice of the European Union, Press Release No. 155/26
Questions Awaiting the Court’s Judgment
Szpunar’s opinion is advisory, not binding. The Court of Justice may follow it, modify its reasoning or take another approach. No date has been announced for the judgment, and the court’s eventual interpretation could determine how broadly the publishers’ right applies to chatbot services across the EU.
The opinion also does not establish whether Google used Like Company’s material in model training; Szpunar said the case record did not support that claim and recommended that the related questions be treated as inadmissible. The Budapest court must still resolve the dispute, including the factual allegations and how the EU court’s eventual answer applies. The legal effect of the opinion’s discussion of training and text-and-data mining will depend on the final judgment and other applicable EU copyright rules.
EU Court and Budapest Proceedings
The Court of Justice will issue its judgment in response to the Hungarian court’s questions; no judgment date has been set. The 2026 average for preliminary-reference proceedings was 16.9 months, according to the court’s statistics, but that figure does not establish when this particular case will be decided.
After the EU court rules, the Budapest court will continue the national proceedings and decide the Like Company dispute under the interpretation it receives. Until then, the opinion offers guidance on the legal issues but does not settle liability in this case or create a binding judgment for other chatbot services.
Key Questions
Did the EU Court of Justice rule against Google?
No. Advocate General Szpunar issued a nonbinding opinion. The Court of Justice has yet to deliver its judgment, and the Hungarian court will decide the underlying case.
When might a chatbot infringe publishers’ rights under the opinion?
Szpunar said infringement may arise if a chatbot obtains an article by bypassing access restrictions or reproduces its distinctive expression so extensively that users can do without the original. Repeating the same facts alone is not enough under his proposed test.
Did Szpunar find that Gemini trained on Like Company’s articles?
No. He said the record did not support that claim and recommended treating the training questions as inadmissible. He considered live retrieval of the July 2023 article a more plausible explanation for Gemini’s summary.
Does the opinion give publishers control over all news facts?
No. The opinion distinguishes facts from the way an article expresses them. Its proposed test concerns unlawful access or recognisable reuse of an article’s expression, not a monopoly on the reported facts.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
