Slashdot has reported:

Google’s Gemini may infringe publishers’ copyright when it reproduces recognizable parts of their articles or bypasses paywalls and other technical protections to answer users, an adviser to the European Union’s highest court said. The case before the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union pits Hungarian website operator Like Company against Google, a U.S.-based company whose artificial intelligence chatbot is at issue.

Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said a publisher’s rights could be infringed when a chatbot retrieves a publication from a publisher’s website, reuses it to generate an answer and provides that answer to a user. He said Gemini’s answers could fall within publishers’ reproduction rights if the chatbot accessed articles by “circumventing paywalls or other technical barriers” or reused “the form of expression of that publication in a recognizable manner.”

A ruling against Google could require the company to pay fees for using such content and provide a lifeline to online media, including Like Company. Publishers have seen traffic decline as AI chatbot summaries increasingly replace traditional search results, which include links to media websites.

Copyright rules do not cover the “mere facts” in press publications, Szpunar said, but protect “only the specific form of expression.” He also said using copyright-protected material to train large language models is “freely permitted under the text and data mining exception.” These AI systems use large volumes of text to produce human-like responses and summarize information. Szpunar said there was no evidence Google had used Like Company’s articles to train Gemini.

The court generally follows the majority of its advisers’ non-binding opinions and is expected to issue its ruling in the coming months. The case concerns chatbot answers, while Szpunar’s comments on training address a separate use of publishers’ material.

“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.