🔍 Read the full analysis: Could AI Chatbots Infringe Copyright When Using Publisher Content? 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 in limited circumstances. His proposed test focuses on unlawful access and answers that reproduce a work’s recognisable expression; it does not treat shared facts alone as infringement. The opinion is nonbinding, and the Hungarian court will decide the dispute after the EU court issues its judgment.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice on Nov. 3 that a chatbot can infringe press publishers’ rights when it retrieves and reuses news articles in answers, but only in certain circumstances. In Case C‑250/25, Like Company v Google Ireland, he proposed focusing on whether the service obtained the article unlawfully or reproduced its expression so recognisably that users could forgo reading the original; the opinion is not a binding ruling.
The case began after Hungarian publisher Like Company challenged Google over a Gemini answer summarising a 2023 article about a singer’s reported plan to bring dolphins to Lake Balaton. The publisher operates several Hungarian news portals. According to the EU court’s press release, Like Company alleges that Google used its articles to train Gemini and repeatedly reproduced and made them available through the chatbot from June 13, 2023, to May 31, 2024.
Szpunar’s proposed test distinguishes between a story’s facts and its written expression. Reporting the same facts would not by itself breach the press publishers’ right, he said. The answer could raise copyright concerns if it retained a recognisable form of expression that let a user dispense with the original publication, or if the chatbot obtained the article by circumventing a paywall or anti-scraping measure.
On the example before him, Szpunar said those conditions did not appear to be met: he identified no access barrier and no recognisable wording in the Gemini answer described in the case. He also pointed to safeguards that Google appeared to have in place. These are assessments in an adviser’s opinion, not findings in a final court judgment; the Hungarian court will decide the underlying dispute.
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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The Line Between Summaries and Substitution
The opinion could shape how news services and AI companies handle online reporting across the EU. If the Court of Justice adopts a similar approach, chatbot providers may need to respect technical and legal access restrictions and avoid answers that function as substitutes for the articles they retrieve. Publishers, in turn, may have a basis to challenge particular uses or negotiate licences, but the proposed test does not give them exclusive control over the underlying news facts.
For readers, the dispute concerns how AI answers will draw on journalism and whether those answers direct attention back to publishers or replace the need to visit them. The opinion does not prescribe a single product design or establish that every summary requires a licence. Its practical effect depends on the final court ruling and how national courts apply that ruling to specific answers, sources and access conditions.
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A Hungarian Dispute Reaches Luxembourg
EU law has provided press publishers with a related right since the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The right covers certain online uses of press publications by online services. Szpunar’s opinion notes that lawmakers had news aggregators such as Google News in mind when adopting it; the dispute asks whether that framework also applies to generative chatbots.
The Budapest regional court referred four questions to the EU court: two concerning alleged use of articles in 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, according to the opinion. The EU court describes the case as the first generative AI matter to reach it.
Szpunar treated the training questions differently from the chatbot-answer questions. He advised that the training questions were inadmissible because the record did not support the claim 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 it implausible that the later-published article had been part of the model’s earlier training data. He said the example instead appeared to involve live retrieval of a webpage to generate an answer.
The Final Copyright Test Is Pending
The Advocate General’s opinion is advisory, not binding. The Court of Justice has not set out its final interpretation, and no date for its judgment has been announced. The Hungarian court must ultimately apply the EU court’s answer to the evidence in the case.
The training issue also remains narrower than some accounts of the opinion may suggest. Szpunar advised the EU court to declare those questions inadmissible because evidence of training use was absent from the record. In additional discussion, he said that training generally involves copying but considered that the EU text-and-data-mining exception may cover it in principle, subject to rights holders’ ability to opt out in a machine-readable form. That discussion was not the ruling on an established instance of training in this dispute.
It is also not yet settled how the proposed standard would apply to different kinds of chatbot answer, including short summaries, quotations, answers drawing on several sources or content taken from pages with different access controls. The final judgment may clarify the legal test, but its application will still depend on specific facts.
Court Judgment Will Guide the Case
The Court of Justice will now consider the Advocate General’s opinion before issuing its judgment. The opinion does not bind the judges, who may follow it, modify its reasoning or reach a different conclusion. No judgment date has been announced.
After the EU court answers the referred questions, the Hungarian court is expected to resolve the dispute using that interpretation and the case evidence. Until then, the opinion offers a proposed legal framework rather than a final determination of whether Google infringed Like Company’s rights.
Key Questions
Has the EU court ruled that Gemini infringed copyright?
No. Szpunar is an Advocate General, and his opinion is nonbinding. The EU Court of Justice has yet to issue its judgment, and the Hungarian court will decide the dispute.
When could a chatbot answer infringe publishers’ rights under the opinion?
Szpunar said infringement may arise if a chatbot obtains an article by circumventing an access barrier, or if its answer reproduces the article’s expression so recognisably that a user can skip the original. Repeating facts alone would not meet that proposed standard.
Did the opinion find that Google trained Gemini on Like Company’s articles?
No. Szpunar advised that the training questions were inadmissible because the record did not establish that the articles were used for training. His separate discussion of text-and-data mining was offered as additional analysis, not a finding that training occurred in this case.
What happens after the Advocate General’s opinion?
The EU Court of Justice will issue a judgment, with no date set yet. The Hungarian court will then apply the EU court’s interpretation to Like Company’s claims and the evidence.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
