European Justice Advisor: 'Gemini' May Violate Copyright Rules

A legal adviser to Europe’s highest court said on Tuesday that Google’s use of journalistic news in its “Gemini” chatbot to answer user queries could, under certain circumstances, constitute a breach of copyright rules.

The Advocate General, Maciej Szpunar, advises the Court of Justice of the European Union, based in Luxembourg, in a case brought by the Hungarian company Likem Company, which operates a website, against the AI-powered Gemini chatbot.

Any ruling against Google that forces it to pay fees for using the content it republishes could be a lifeline for digital media outlets such as Likem Company. These companies have seen a decline in web traffic, as AI chatbot-generated news summaries, like those from Gemini, are increasingly replacing traditional search engine results that include hyperlinks.

According to a statement issued by the court, Szpunar said, “When a chatbot based on a large language model takes a post from a media outlet’s website, reuses that post to generate an answer, and provides that answer to the user, the media outlet’s rights may be infringed under certain circumstances.”

He added that Gemini’s answers fall within the scope of publishers’ reproduction rights when chatbots access posts by illegally bypassing paywalls or other technical barriers, or when they reuse “the specific expression of that post in a recognizable manner.”

The Advocate General’s opinions are not binding, but the court’s judges typically take them into account.