EU Opinion Warns of Copyright Risks in AI Chatbots

The use of journalistic content by the Gemini chatbot may infringe on copyright under certain conditions. This analysis was presented by advocate general Maciej Szpunar to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case stems from a lawsuit filed by the Hungarian firm Like Company against Google.

The opinion notes that the reproduction of publications occurs when the system bypasses technical barriers or paywalls. Reusing the specific expression of a text in a recognizable way also constitutes a potential violation. Pure facts reported by the press do not carry this specific legal protection.

On the other hand, using protected material to train language models is considered permissible. The advocate general classified this practice as an exception for text and data mining. Training artificial intelligence systems therefore follows a different rule than displaying responses to users.

Opinions from this legal advisor are not binding. However, judges at the European court typically follow the guidance presented in such reports. The outcome of the case could impact the business model of tech companies that rely on automated summaries.

The potential imposition of fees for using journalistic content could raise operational costs for tech companies and pressure profit margins across the artificial intelligence sector.