November 3, 2026
The legal advisor at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Macie Szpunar, warned that the use of Google’s artificial intelligence robot “Gemini” to use newspaper articles to generate answers for users may constitute a violation of copyright in specific cases.
This warning came as part of a legal opinion submitted by Szpunar, today, Tuesday, against the backdrop of a lawsuit filed by the Hungarian publishing company “Like Company” against “Google”, accusing it of exploiting the content of its news sites without a license.
Szpunar explained that the process of reusing newspaper articles to produce answers may violate copyright laws, especially when the system reproduces protected wording or breaches technical barriers that protect access to content.
In this context, the advisor made a clear distinction between the use of articles in the initial training of artificial intelligence models – which may be legally excluded under the heading of text and data mining – and the process of reproducing the content of those articles within the responses provided to users, stressing that legal protection is limited to the original wording of the journalistic material and does not include facts and abstract information.
It is noteworthy that this legal opinion is not binding on the court, and the latter is scheduled to issue its final ruling in the coming days. In a case that is expected to have broad repercussions on the nature of the future relationship between artificial intelligence giants and media institutions, especially with regard to the mechanisms for using journalistic content and ensuring compensation for it.
