EU Court Adviser Targets Google Gemini Outputs in Copyright Dispute
Key Summary
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar delivered a non-binding opinion on November 3, 2026, regarding case C-250/25, involving Hungarian press publisher Like Company and Google Ireland Ltd. Szpunar distinguished AI training from inference, arguing that chatbot outputs reproducing protected press articles may violate Article 15 of the EU Digital Single Market Directive.
Key Bullets
- Advocate General Maciej Szpunar issued a non-binding legal opinion on November 3, 2026, targeting Google Ireland Ltd over Gemini chatbot outputs.
- The ongoing legal dispute in case C-250/25 involves Hungarian press publisher Like Company alleging unauthorized reproduction of protected articles.
- Article 15 of the EU Digital Single Market Directive serves as the primary legal basis for press publisher rights over online uses.
- The court reference squarely addresses chatbot inference stages rather than initial machine learning data ingestion phases.
Adviser Targets Google Gemini Output Risks
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar issued a non-binding opinion on November 3, 2026, stating that Google's Gemini chatbot may infringe publisher copyright when generating responses for users. Court documents for case C-250/25 show Hungarian press publisher Like Company filed the complaint against Google Ireland Ltd.
Like Company asserted that Gemini reproduced substantial parts of its protected press articles without authorization between June 2023 and February 2024. The advisory stance marks the first time a Court of Justice of the European Union reference directly evaluated artificial intelligence outputs against press publisher rights.
Inference Stage Shifts Legal Liability Focus
Szpunar separated the life cycle of artificial intelligence models into distinct training and inference phases according to legal filings submitted to the court. The analysis centers on the inference stage where models retrieve publications, reuse content, and deliver direct answers to users.
Article 15 of the EU Digital Single Market Directive grants press publishers exclusive rights over online uses of their publications. Legal representatives for publishers now possess a specific statutory footing to contest retrieval workflows utilized by conversational search engines.
Pending Rulings Threaten European Precedent
The referral reached the Court of Justice of the European Union in April 2025, followed by an oral hearing on March 10, 2026. Judges retain no obligation to follow the recommendations delivered by Advocate General Maciej Szpunar.
Future litigation across the European Union will likely adopt the structural distinction between data ingestion and output generation. Technology platforms face mounting legal exposure regarding what conversational agents display on screen.
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