EU Court Adviser Says Google Gemini May Infringe Copyright

Advocate General Maciej Szpunar, an adviser to Europe's highest court, issued an opinion Tuesday stating that Google's AI chatbot Gemini may infringe copyright rules. The opinion focuses on instances where the chatbot retrieves a publication from a press publisher's website and reuses that content to generate an answer for a user.

Szpunar clarified that while copyright rules protect specific forms of expression rather than mere facts, the use of copyrighted material to train large language models is still permitted under the text and data mining exception. He noted that the publisher's right may be infringed in certain circumstances when the chatbot provides these generated answers to users.

The legal opinion stems from a case brought by Like Company, a Hungarian website operator, against Google. While the opinion is not a final ruling, judges at Europe's highest court typically follow the guidance provided by the advocate-general.