Google’s Gemini Faces EU Copyright Scrutiny Over Use of News Content - PYMNTS.com
By Google News AI ·
Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini could breach European Union copyright protections when it uses news articles to generate responses, according to a legal opinion issued Tuesday that could have significant implications for the relationship between AI companies and digital publishers.
Maciej Szpunar, an advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Union, concluded that AI services may infringe publishers’ rights when they retrieve and reproduce protected journalistic material without authorization, Reuters reported on November 3. The opinion draws a distinction between using copyrighted material to develop AI models and incorporating protected content into answers delivered to users.
The assessment comes as news organizations confront growing competition from generative AI platforms that provide direct answers to information requests, potentially reducing the need for readers to visit publishers’ websites.
A decision that establishes liability for certain uses of news content could strengthen publishers’ positions in negotiations over licensing and compensation, according to Reuters.
The opinion stems from a lawsuit brought against Google by Like Company, a Hungarian operator of online news portals.
The publisher alleges that Google used its articles to train the large language models behind Gemini and subsequently reproduced protected material through the chatbot. The disputed activity covers a period between June 2023 and May 2024, according to documents published by the EU court.
A Hungarian court referred questions about the application of European copyright law to the Luxembourg-based tribunal, seeking clarification on the protections available to publishers when AI systems process and reproduce their work.
Szpunar’s assessment…
Originally published by Google News AI