The opinion, delivered on Tuesday by Advocate General Maciej Szpunar, could have significant implications for technology companies and media organisations, particularly over the use of copyrighted journalistic content to generate AI-powered responses without compensation to publishers.
The dispute before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), based in Luxembourg, involves Hungarian website operator Like Company and Google's Gemini chatbot.
The case centres on growing concerns among publishers that AI platforms are using their reports and articles to generate summaries and answers for users, potentially reducing traffic to original news websites and affecting their advertising and subscription revenues.
A ruling against Google could create an avenue for publishers to seek compensation when their copyrighted material is reproduced by AI chatbots. It could also influence how technology companies access and use online journalistic content across the European market.
In his opinion, Szpunar said the use of publishers' material by AI chatbots could infringe their rights in certain circumstances.
"When an LLM (large language model)-driven chatbot retrieves a publication from a press publisher's website, reuses that publication to generate an answer, and provides that answer to the user, the press publisher's right may be infringed in certain circumstances," he said.
He explained that publishers' reproduction rights could be violated where chatbots access articles by unlawfully bypassing paywalls or other technical restrictions, or reproduce recognisable elements of the original publication's expression.
However, Szpunar clarified that copyright protection does not extend to the mere facts contained in news reports but applies to the specific manner in which those facts are presented.
The adviser also distinguished between the use of copyrighted material to generate AI responses and its use to train large language models (LLMs).
According to him, the use of copyright-protected material to train such systems falls under the European Union's text and data mining exception and is permitted under the relevant rules.
He added that there was no evidence that Google had used Like Company's articles to train Gemini.
Although the court often follows the opinions of its legal advisers, the Advocate General's position is not binding. The CJEU is expected to deliver its final ruling in the coming months.
Reacting to the development, a Google spokesperson defended the company's approach, arguing that European copyright provisions allow AI developers to train their systems using publicly available information.
"European law's text and data mining exceptions are vital for Europe's competitiveness and AI development, and we acknowledge the Advocate General's opinion recognising that EU law permits AI training on publicly available information.
"Gemini learns linguistic patterns to create original outputs rather than replicating content, supported by extensive publisher controls that give rightsholders clear choice and the ability to opt out," the spokesperson said.
However, the European Publishers Council stressed the need to distinguish between allowing search engines to index news articles and permitting AI chatbots to generate responses that could replace visits to original news publications.
The council's executive director, Angela Mills Wade, said Google's growing influence over online information distribution made the issue particularly important for publishers.
"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," she said.
She added, "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."
The case highlights the widening disagreement between traditional media organisations and major technology companies over copyright, content ownership and the commercial use of journalism in artificial intelligence.
Its eventual outcome could help define the legal boundaries governing how AI platforms reproduce, summarise and use news content, while determining the extent to which publishers can protect their work and seek compensation in an increasingly AI-driven digital environment.