Google and LIke Company

We are currently awaiting the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to rule on the preliminary question referred by the High Court of Budapest, in what will be the first case addressing the intellectual-property implications of generative AI.

The claimant—Like Company—is a Hungarian publisher operating several online news portals, including www.balatonkornyeke.hu.

The defendant is Google Ireland Limited, part of the Alphabet group in Europe.

What happened?

The case involves Gemini, Google’s large language model, which in one of its responses reproduced an article that Like Company had published on its site. Specifically, it concerned a piece reporting singer Kozsó’s plan to introduce dolphins to an aquarium near Lake Balaton, along with other details of his private life.

When asked to summarize that news item in Hungarian, Gemini produced a detailed response that reproduced information from Like Company’s protected publication.

What is Google arguing?

Google contends that Gemini’s answers neither reproduce nor communicate to the public Like Company’s news under EU law, because they do not reach a “new public”; anyone can read the original on the internet.

It adds that, in any case, the output consists of individual words or very short extracts permitted by law. Even if the responses were considered reproductions, several exceptions should apply, given that the excerpts are minimal.

In short, Google presents Gemini as a creative tool, not a database: it processes tokens and does not store copies; it would only display identical text if the user supplied the article. Finally, Google argues that Article 15 of the DSM Directive must be balanced against freedom of expression and information, and providers cannot be required to monitor every extract, just as they are not obliged to review links shown in search results.

¿What are the implications of this case?

At stake is the future of LLMs (generative AI) in Europe. The ruling will determine what chatbots may display when answering about news: just a link, or also paragraphs and summaries. If the CJEU finds that such “snippets” amount to copying or republication, i.e., reproduction, AI platforms would have to pay licensing fees to publishers or trim their outputs.