Europe's Top Court Adviser Says Gemini May Breach Copyright When It Answers With News
欧盟最高法院顾问：Gemini 用新闻作答可能侵权
欧盟法院法务总顾问什普纳尔认为，聊天机器人取用新闻稿件生成回答，在绕过付费墙、或以可识别方式复用原文表达的情况下可能侵权；但他同时强调版权不保护「单纯事实」，且用受保护材料训练模型在现行例外条款下是被允许的。
An advocate general at the EU's Court of Justice says an AI that answers with a publisher's reporting can infringe copyright — if it dodges a paywall or reuses the wording. Facts, he notes, are not protected.
An adviser to Europe's highest court has said that Google's Gemini chatbot may, in some circumstances, breach copyright when it answers a question using material from news reports. The opinion was delivered on Tuesday in a case brought by a Hungarian website operator against Google.
The adviser, Maciej Szpunar, is an advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. The role is worth knowing: advocates general write a reasoned opinion before the judges rule. It does not bind them, but the court follows it in most cases.
The case turns on how Gemini uses journalism. When a large language model takes an article from a publisher's site, uses it to produce an answer and shows that answer to a user, Szpunar wrote, the publisher's rights may be infringed in certain circumstances. He named two: where the chatbot obtained the material by getting around a paywall or another technical restriction, and where the answer reused the report's specific form of expression in a recognisable way.
He was equally careful about the limit. Copyright protects the way facts are expressed, not the facts themselves, so the underlying information in a news report is not covered. That distinction is the whole argument in miniature: a model may know that something happened without copying the sentences a journalist used to say it.
On training, Szpunar took Google's side. Using protected material to train a language model is, he said, permitted under Europe's existing text-and-data-mining exception — the rule that lets machines read and analyse large bodies of text.
The commercial stakes are easy to see. If the court ultimately requires Google to pay for news content, outlets like the Hungarian plaintiff gain leverage at a moment when their traffic is shrinking, because AI answers increasingly replace the search results that used to send readers to their sites.
A judgment is expected in the coming months. For publishers, the interesting part is not the size of any payment but the principle being tested: whether an AI that summarises the news stands in the same legal position as a search engine that links to it.
中文翻译（全文）
欧洲最高法院的一名顾问表示，谷歌的 Gemini 聊天机器人在使用新闻报道的内容回答问题、且情形符合特定条件时，可能构成版权侵权。该意见于周二在一家匈牙利网站运营商起诉谷歌的案件中提出。
这位顾问是 Maciej Szpunar，担任卢森堡欧盟法院的法务总顾问。这个角色值得了解：法务总顾问在法官裁决前出具一份说理意见。意见对法官没有约束力，但法院在多数案件中会采纳。
案件的关键在于 Gemini 如何使用新闻。什普纳尔写道，当大语言模型从出版商网站取走一篇文章、用它生成回答并呈现给用户时，在特定情况下可能侵犯出版商的权利。他点明了两种情形：聊天机器人绕过付费墙或其他技术限制获取内容；以及回答以可识别的方式复用了报道的具体表达形式。
他对边界同样谨慎。版权保护的是事实的表达方式，而不是事实本身，所以新闻报道背后的信息并不受保护。这个区分就是整场争论的缩影：模型可以知道某件事发生过，但不能照抄记者用来叙述它的句子。
在训练问题上，什普纳尔站在谷歌一边。他表示，用受保护的材料训练语言模型，在欧盟现行的文本与数据挖掘例外条款下是被允许的——那条规则允许机器读取和分析大量文本。
商业上的利害一目了然。如果法院最终要求谷歌为新闻内容付费，像这位匈牙利原告这样的媒体将获得筹码，而此时它们的流量正在萎缩：AI 回答正越来越多地取代过去把读者送往其网站的搜索结果。
判决预计在未来数月作出。对出版方来说，有意思的不是赔偿金额，而是正在被检验的原则：一个总结新闻的 AI，是否与一个链接到新闻的搜索引擎处于相同的法律地位。
重点词汇
- advocate general /ˈædvəkət ˈdʒenrəl/ n. — a senior adviser to the EU Court of Justice who issues an opinion before judges rule （欧盟法院）法务总顾问 The advocate general's opinion is not binding.
- bind /baɪnd/ v. — to legally oblige someone to follow something 约束 The opinion does not bind the judges.
- infringe /ɪnˈfrɪndʒ/ v. — to break a law or a right 侵犯（权利） The publisher's rights may be infringed.
- paywall /ˈpeɪwɔːl/ n. — a system that blocks access to content until the reader pays 付费墙 The chatbot got around the paywall.
- expression /ɪkˈspreʃn/ n. — the particular way something is worded or presented 表达（形式） Copyright protects expression, not facts.
- distinction /dɪˈstɪŋkʃn/ n. — a difference between two things that matters 区分 That distinction decides the case.
- exception /ɪkˈsepʃn/ n. — a case that is not covered by a general rule 例外（条款） Training falls under a data-mining exception.
- leverage /ˈliːvərɪdʒ/ n. — power to influence a situation or negotiate 筹码；影响力 Publishers would gain leverage.
- ruling /ˈruːlɪŋ/ n. — an official decision by a court 裁决 A ruling is expected in the coming months.
- body of text /ˈbɒdi əv tekst/ n. — a large amount of written material considered as a whole 大量文本 Machines may read large bodies of text.
阅读测验
共 5 道题目
What did the EU court adviser conclude?
Which two situations did he name?
Copyright protects the facts reported in an article, not the way they are expressed.
Which points does the article make? (Select all that apply)
The adviser is an advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Union in _____.
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