A dispute brought by Hungarian publisher Like Company has become the first case concerning Generative AI to reach the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The case asks whether Google’s Gemini and other AI chatbots may infringe press publishers’ rights by using news content to generate answers.
Like Company alleges that Google reproduced several news articles during Gemini’s training and made them available to the public. The court in Budapest paused proceedings while the ECJ considers questions about how copyright rules apply. The allegations have not been established: Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said there was no evidence that the articles had been used to train the AI.
Szpunar advised the court that publishers’ rights could be infringed when chatbots retrieve and reuse online press material in real time to answer user questions. He said copyright protects the specific expression of a publication, not the facts reported in it. The court would therefore need to assess whether a chatbot accessed articles unlawfully, for example by bypassing a paywall, and whether its answer recognisably reproduced the article’s wording to an extent that users would no longer need to read the original.
The adviser also said a systematic infringement would need to be established. Chatbot providers could be liable if using press publications were an integral part of their business model or if they failed to take suitable steps to prevent such use.
Szpunar’s opinion is not the ECJ’s final judgment. The court often follows its advocates general’s recommendations, but the timing of its ruling in this case is not known.
Sources: t3n.