EU court adviser says some uses of press stories in Gemini may infringe copyright

Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said Google’s use of press publications in Gemini may infringe publishers’ rights in certain circumstances, including if the chatbot circumvents technical barriers or recognisably reuses a publication’s expression. He also said copyright-protected material may be used to train large language models under the text-and-data-mining exception. His opinion is non-binding; the Court of Justice of the European Union will decide the case brought by Like Company.

• The case was brought by Hungarian website operator Like Company against Google’s Gemini chatbot in the Court of Justice of the European Union.· 1 source
• Szpunar said infringement may occur if a chatbot accesses publications by unlawfully circumventing paywalls or other technical barriers, or recognisably reuses their expression. Copyright does not protect the mere facts in press publications, he said.· 1 source
• The adviser said use of copyrighted material to train large language models is permitted under the text-and-data-mining exception. His opinion is not binding on the court.· 1 source