🔍 Read the full analysis: What An EU Opinion On AI Chatbots Could Mean For Publishers on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
Get the latest gadgets delivered free with Prime
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
- Member-only deals all year
TL;DR
On Nov. 3, 2026, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice that chatbots retrieving news articles may infringe publishers’ rights in limited circumstances. His opinion is non-binding, and he said the facts presented in the Gemini case do not appear to meet his test.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the Court of Justice of the European Union on Nov. 3 that AI chatbots may infringe press publishers’ rights when they retrieve and reuse news articles in answers, if they bypass access barriers or reproduce recognisable expression. The non-binding opinion in Case C‑250/25, Like Company v Google Ireland, could shape how publishers and AI services approach news content, but Szpunar said the available facts in this dispute do not appear to satisfy his test.
The case began after Gemini summarised a Hungarian-language article about a proposal to bring dolphins to Lake Balaton. Like Company, which operates Hungarian news portals, sued Google in Hungary. It argued that Google had used its articles to train Gemini and had repeatedly reproduced and made them available through the chatbot from June 2023 to May 2024, according to the Court of Justice’s summary of the dispute.
Szpunar’s proposed test focuses on how a chatbot obtains and presents an article. A publisher’s right may be infringed if a service accessed an article unlawfully—for example, by getting around a paywall or anti-scraping measure—or if the answer reproduces the article’s expressive form so closely that a user can do without visiting the original. Repeating the same facts alone is not enough, his opinion says. The ruling would concern the EU press publishers’ right, not a general right to control news facts.
On the case’s facts, the adviser said those conditions do not appear to be present: he pointed to the absence of access barriers, no recognisable wording in the example answer and apparent safeguards at Google. That is his assessment, not a final finding by the EU court. The Hungarian court referred four questions to Luxembourg; the Court of Justice will give the binding interpretation.
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.
Powered by Thorsten Meyer AI
A Narrower Right Over Chatbot Answers
The opinion offers publishers a possible legal route to challenge some chatbot uses of their reporting, while limiting that route. It does not treat a chatbot’s ability to state facts also reported by a publisher as infringement by itself. The focus is on unauthorised access and answers that retain enough of an article’s distinctive expression to substitute for the publication.
For AI companies, the proposed standard puts practical attention on how systems retrieve material and what they return to users. Respecting paywalls and technical restrictions, and avoiding answers that closely reproduce an article’s wording or structure, could matter in assessing legal risk. For publishers, the opinion may strengthen arguments for licensing deals where chatbot outputs use protected expression, but it does not establish a blanket right to payment whenever an AI service discusses a news event.
Readers could also feel the effects if services change their answers, add more links or draw more visibly on several sources. Those are possible responses, not outcomes required by the opinion. The eventual consequences depend on the Court of Justice’s judgment, the facts of future disputes and how services implement any resulting legal standard.
Products Worth Considering
Samsung 27-inch Odyssey G5 QHD Gaming Monitor (G51F)
LG UltraGear 34GX90SA-W 34-inch WQHD Curved OLED Gaming Monitor
Samsung 27-Inch Odyssey OLED G5 QHD Gaming Monitor
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
The Gemini Dispute Reaches Luxembourg
Like Company brought its case before the Budapest regional court under the EU press publishers’ right, established by Article 15 of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The right was designed to let publishers control or license certain online uses of press publications, including uses by news aggregators. The Hungarian court asked the EU court to interpret that right as it applies to AI training and chatbot answers.
The case is described by the Court of Justice as the first generative AI case to reach it. Nine EU governments and the European Commission submitted written observations, and the hearing took place on March 10, 2026, according to the opinion. The court’s job is to interpret EU law; the Hungarian court will apply that interpretation to the dispute.
Szpunar treated the training questions separately from the chatbot-output questions. He advised that the training questions were inadmissible because the record did not support a finding that the specific articles had been used to train Gemini. The dolphin article appeared in July 2023, while Gemini 1.0 was released in December that year; he considered it implausible that the article had entered the model’s training data on the timeline described. He said the example was instead consistent with retrieval-augmented generation, in which a system retrieves web pages when answering a query.
Only as an additional observation, Szpunar discussed the EU text-and-data-mining exception. He said training is, in principle, covered by that exception, subject to the framework’s conditions, including the ability of rights holders to reserve their rights in a machine-readable way. This was not his operative answer to the case’s training questions, which he recommended the court dismiss as inadmissible.
“repeatedly reproduced and made them available to the public through the Gemini chatbot”
— The Court of Justice of the European Union, summarising Like Company’s case
The Court Has Yet to Rule
Szpunar’s opinion is not binding. The Court of Justice may follow it, modify its reasoning or take a different approach. The court has not announced a date for its judgment, and the opinion does not resolve the dispute’s facts or determine whether Google infringed Like Company’s rights.
The training issue also remains unresolved as a substantive ruling in this case. Szpunar recommended that the court reject those questions as inadmissible because the record did not show that the articles were used for training. His additional discussion of the text-and-data-mining exception was offered for completeness, rather than as the operative answer to a proven instance of training.
It is also unclear how broadly the proposed test would apply across different products. The opinion addresses a particular kind of chatbot retrieval and reuse; it does not set out a complete rule for every form of AI search, summarisation or content generation. The effect on licensing and user-facing answers will depend on the final judgment and later cases.
A Judgment Will Set the Rule
The next step is for the Court of Justice to issue its judgment on the questions referred by the Hungarian court. No date has been set. In 2025, preliminary references took an average of 16.9 months, according to the court’s statistics; that figure is a general reference, not a timetable for this case.
After the EU court interprets the law, the Budapest court will decide the underlying dispute using that interpretation. Publishers, AI providers and users will then have a clearer indication of how the press publishers’ right applies to chatbot answers, including whether access controls and the degree of textual similarity affect liability.
Key Questions
Has the EU Court of Justice ruled against Google?
No. The development is an Advocate General’s non-binding opinion. The Court of Justice has not issued its judgment, and the Hungarian court will decide the dispute after receiving the EU court’s interpretation.
When could a chatbot answer infringe publishers’ rights under the opinion?
Szpunar said infringement may arise if a chatbot accesses an article unlawfully, such as by bypassing a paywall or anti-scraping restriction, or if its answer reproduces the article’s expression so closely that users can do without the original. Repeating facts alone would not meet that test.
Did the opinion establish that Gemini trained on Like Company’s articles?
No. Szpunar said the record did not support the claim that the articles were used for training and advised that the training questions were inadmissible. He considered the example consistent with live retrieval of the article when a user asked a question.
Does the opinion give publishers a right to payment whenever chatbots use news?
No. It does not establish a general right to payment for any chatbot answer about news. Its proposed test concerns unlawful access or reproduction of recognisable expression; the final legal position depends on the Court of Justice’s judgment.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
