🔍 Read the full analysis: AI, Publishers And Copyright: What The EU Adviser’s View Means on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the EU Court of Justice that chatbots may infringe press publishers’ rights if they obtain articles unlawfully or reproduce their distinctive expression closely enough to substitute for the original. He said the test does not appear to be met in Like Company’s dispute with Google, and the opinion is not binding; the Court of Justice will decide the case later.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar advised the European Union’s Court of Justice on 3 November 2026 that AI chatbots which retrieve and reuse news articles may, in some circumstances, infringe press publishers’ rights. In Case C‑250/25, Like Company v Google Ireland, he proposed that infringement could arise from unlawful access to an article or an answer that reproduces its distinctive expression so closely that users can avoid reading the original; his opinion is not binding on the court.
The dispute began after Google’s Gemini chatbot produced a Hungarian summary of an article about a singer’s reported plan to bring dolphins to Lake Balaton. Hungarian publisher Like Company sued Google, alleging that its articles were used to train Gemini and were reproduced or made available through chatbot answers. The company operates several Hungarian news portals. The case was referred to Luxembourg by a Hungarian court.
Szpunar’s proposed test distinguishes the facts reported from the way an article expresses them. Repeating information from a news report would not, by itself, infringe the publishers’ right. The opinion says a chatbot answer could cross the line if its wording makes the original article recognisable enough that a reader can dispense with accessing the publication, or if the service obtained the article by circumventing measures such as a paywall or an anti-scraping barrier.
Applying that approach to the example before him, Szpunar said the conditions for infringement did not appear to be present: the article was apparently accessible without an access barrier, the answer did not appear to reproduce recognisable wording, and Google appeared to have safeguards. That assessment is not a final decision on the facts. The Hungarian court must apply the Court of Justice’s eventual ruling to the 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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A Narrower Right Over Chatbot Answers
The opinion offers publishers and AI services a proposed legal boundary for systems that search the web and compose answers from current material. Under Szpunar’s approach, publishers would not control the underlying news facts simply because they reported them. Their claim would be stronger where a chatbot’s access was unlawful or where its answer carried over the article’s distinctive expression in a way that could substitute for the source.
For publishers, that could support complaints or licensing negotiations where answers reproduce identifiable writing or bypass access controls, while leaving room for chatbots to summarise the same events in their own words. For AI providers, the opinion points to the importance of respecting barriers to access and avoiding outputs that closely track protected expression. These are the Advocate General’s proposed legal principles, not yet binding rules. The practical outcome will depend on the Court’s judgment and how national courts apply it.
Readers may also be affected: the distinction could shape whether AI search tools give short summaries with links, reproduce more of an article, or decline to answer from certain sites. The opinion does not set detailed technical requirements for safeguards or specify a general measure of how much similarity is too much.
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How the Hungarian Case Reached Luxembourg
Like Company brought its case in Hungary, arguing that Google used its publications in connection with Gemini. According to the Court of Justice’s account of the dispute, the alleged conduct covered the period from 13 June 2023 to 31 May 2024 and included both model training and answers generated by the chatbot. The Hungarian court sent four questions to the EU court: two concerning training and two concerning chatbot responses. A hearing took place on 10 March 2026, after written observations from nine EU member states and the European Commission.
The relevant publishers’ right comes from Article 15 of the EU’s 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. It gives press publishers rights over certain online uses of their publications and was adopted in part to address services such as news aggregators. The current case asks how that right applies when a chatbot retrieves an article to answer a user rather than displaying it as a conventional search result.
On training, Szpunar’s main conclusion was procedural: he recommended that the court treat the questions as inadmissible because the referral did not establish that Like Company’s articles were used to train Gemini. He also reasoned that training on dedicated computers would not itself be the online use covered by the press publishers’ right. Separately, discussing the issue for completeness, he said training may in principle fall within the EU’s text-and-data-mining exception, subject to rights holders’ ability to reserve their rights in a machine-readable form. That discussion is not a ruling that Google used these articles for training.
The Court Still Has to Rule
The Advocate General’s opinion is advisory, not binding. The Court of Justice may follow it, modify its reasoning or reach a different conclusion. It has not announced a date for its judgment, and the Hungarian court will ultimately decide the dispute using the EU court’s interpretation.
The record described in the opinion also leaves the training allegation unresolved rather than established: Szpunar said the referral did not provide evidence that Like Company’s articles were included in Gemini’s training data. His comments about the text-and-data-mining exception were made for completeness and do not decide whether the exception applies to any particular training activity. The exact safeguards Google used, and how courts should assess whether wording is recognisable or substitutive in other cases, remain open questions.
Judgment and Hungarian Proceedings
The next major step is a judgment from the Court of Justice in Case C‑250/25. No judgment date has been set. The court’s 2025 statistics put the average duration of preliminary-reference proceedings at 16.9 months, but that figure does not establish when this particular case will be decided.
After the EU court rules, the Hungarian proceedings will continue, with the national court applying the interpretation to Like Company’s claims and the evidence. Until then, the opinion provides a proposed framework for publishers and AI providers, not a final determination of liability in this dispute.
Key Questions
Has the EU Court of Justice ruled against Google?
No. Advocate General Szpunar issued a non-binding opinion. The Court of Justice has yet to deliver its judgment, and the Hungarian court will decide the underlying dispute after the EU court provides its interpretation.
When could a chatbot’s use of a news article infringe publishers’ rights?
Under the opinion’s proposed test, infringement may arise if a chatbot obtains an article by unlawfully bypassing an access barrier, or if its answer reproduces the article’s expression so recognisably that users can avoid accessing the original. Merely conveying the same facts would not be enough under this approach.
Did the opinion find that Google trained Gemini on Like Company’s articles?
No. Szpunar said the referral did not establish that the articles were in Gemini’s training data and recommended that the training questions be treated as inadmissible. His separate discussion of text-and-data mining was not a finding about Google’s conduct in this case.
What happens next in the case?
The Court of Justice must issue its judgment, with no date announced. The Hungarian court will then apply the EU court’s interpretation to Like Company’s claims against Google.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
