Setback for Google as EU court adviser warns AI chatbot may breach copyright rules

BRUSSELS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Google faced a setback on Tuesday when an adviser to Europe's highest court said its Gemini chatbot's use of publishers' articles to respond to queries from internet users may breach copyright rules.

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By Inti Landauro and Foo Yun Chee

The case underscores growing tensions between publishers and big online platforms over the platforms' AI chatbots' use of press stories without what publishers say is proper compensation. The tensions have prompted complaints to EU and national antitrust regulators.

The case before the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union pitted Hungarian website operator Like Company against US-based Google's GOOGL.O artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini.

A ruling against Google, which could force the tech giant to pay fees for the use of such content, could throw a lifeline to online media such as Like Company. They have seen traffic dwindle as news summaries written by AI chatbots like Gemini increasingly replace traditional search engines' results, which include hyperlinks to the media websites.

"When an LLM (large language model)-driven chatbot retrieves a publication from a press publisher's website, reuses that publication to generate an answer, and provides that answer to the user, the press publisher's right may be infringed in certain circumstances," Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said.

Gemini's answers fall under the publishers' right of reproduction when chatbots access publications by unlawfully circumventing paywalls or other technical barriers, or when they reuse "the form of expression of that publication in a recognisable manner", he said.

Copyright rules do not protect the "mere facts" reported by press publications, but "only the specific form of expression", he added.

On the other hand, he said, the use of material protected by copyright to train LLMs – AI systems that use vast amounts of text to generate human-like responses and summarize information – is "freely permitted under the text and data mining exception."

Szpunar said there was no evidence that Google had used the Hungarian publisher's articles to train Gemini.

The court, which follows the majority of its advisers' non-binding opinions, will rule in the coming months.

A Google spokesperson said: "European law's text and data mining exceptions are vital for Europe's competitiveness and AI development, and we acknowledge the Advocate General's opinion recognising that EU law permits AI training on publicly available information.

"Gemini learns linguistic patterns to create original outputs rather than replicating content, supported by extensive publisher controls that give rightsholders clear choice and the ability to opt out."

The European Publishers Council said it was important to distinguish between allowing search indexing and authorising AI answers that substitute for original reporting.

"Google's powerful gatekeeping role in search makes this particularly important. Publishers depend on Google to reach readers, while Google increasingly delivers AI-generated answers directly to users," said Angela Mills Wade, the council's executive director.

"Publishers should not have to choose between search visibility and protecting their rights. Nor should Google's control over access to audiences become leverage to secure publishers' content for AI services," she said.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Inti Landauro, editing by Bart Meijer, Susan Fenton and Jonathan Spicer)

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