EU Court Adviser Says Gemini May Infringe Publishers’ Copyright

An adviser to the European Union’s Court of Justice said Google’s Gemini chatbot may infringe press publishers’ rights when it reuses protected expression from online articles, outlining a possible test for a pending case.

In a Nov. 3 opinion in Case C-250/25, Szpunar addressed a suit filed by Hungarian publisher Like Company against Google Ireland Limited. The EU court has yet to decide the dispute, which came to it from a Hungarian court.

The assessment may consider whether Gemini answers preserve recognizable elements of an article’s original expression and do so often enough to substitute for visiting the publisher’s page. It may also turn on whether the chatbot obtained access unlawfully, such as by bypassing an effective barrier like a paywall. The opinion distinguishes an article’s original expression from the facts it reports.

Szpunar recommended treating two questions about large language model training as inadmissible. He said the record did not establish that Gemini had been trained on Like Company’s work and viewed training as distinct from making press articles available online. As an alternative view, he said training on protected works generally falls under the EU text-and-data-mining exception.

The case concerns Article 15 of the EU’s Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The Hungarian court will decide the underlying dispute after the EU court issues its ruling.