AI law and the newsroom, November 2–3: the EU court adviser sets the test for an answer that replaces the article, and Türkiye orders Google to let publishers opt out without losing search ranking
Two jurisdictions, two instruments: Europe's court adviser sets out when a chatbot's answer takes the article's place and infringes the publisher's right, and Türkiye's competition board gives Google three months to separate its AI summaries from search ranking.
This issue covers 2 and 3 November 2026, the days since the last one, in two items. In Luxembourg the adviser to the European Union's top court gave his opinion on whether a chatbot's answer needs a publisher's permission. In Ankara the competition authority published the reasoning behind an order that tells Google to let news publishers choose.
Two questions run through both. When does an AI answer take the place of an article? And who gets to say whether it may, and what the publisher is owed for it?
European Union: the test for an answer that replaces the article
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar delivered his opinion in Like Company v Google Ireland Limited, case C-250/25, on Tuesday 3 November 2026. 1 An Advocate General advises the Court of Justice; the judges then decide, and may depart from the advice. 1 This is the first generative-AI case to reach the Court. 1
The Court's press office put the conclusion this way. Retrieving and reusing press publications in real time to generate answers "may, in certain circumstances, infringe the rights of press publishers". 1
The case began in Hungary. Like Company runs balatonkornyeke.hu and claims the right the EU gave press publishers in 2019 over the online use of their articles. 2 The Budapest Regional Court referred four questions. 2
Two of them concerned training. The other two concerned the answers. They rest on the technique behind them: retrieval-augmented generation, or "grounding", which lets a chatbot pull pages from the web while it composes a reply. 2
Szpunar advised the Court to declare the training questions inadmissible, and to answer the two on the chatbot's answers. 1 He called the training questions hypothetical, for two reasons. 1 Like Company had produced no evidence that its articles trained Gemini. 1 Training a model, he added, is not an "online use" of a press publication within Article 15(1). 1
He answered them anyway, and that passage is the one to read twice. Training on protected works, he suggests, is as a rule freely permitted under the text and data mining exception in Article 4. 1 That exception lets commercial mining proceed over lawfully accessible material unless rightholders reserve their rights. 2
The reservation survives his reasoning. Article 4 applies only where rights have not been "expressly reserved" in an appropriate manner, such as machine-readable means for content online. 2 Where a publisher restricts access or reserves its rights, a model developer needs a licence. 2
A threshold question came first. Article 15(1) reaches online use of press publications by information society service providers. 2 He treated a chatbot's live retrieval as that kind of use, which is what kept the two answer questions in play. 2
On the two questions he answered, he set a test with two limbs. A relevant reproduction occurs when the chatbot reached the publication unlawfully, in particular by circumventing effective measures such as a paywall. 2 It also occurs when the publication's form of expression is recognizable in the answer to the point that the reader can dispense with the original. 2
Making a publication available to the public occurs where its form of expression is "systematically recognisable" across answers to related queries. 2
Facts stay outside the right. What it protects is the form of expression and the investment behind it. 1
The two limbs stand on their own. A closed archive gains from the first, and an article that sits open can still infringe through the second. 2
The provider answers for both. The acts count as the chatbot provider's where they are inherent to its business model. 2 They also count where the provider failed to take the measures a reasonably diligent operator would take. 2
He names the measures. The retrieval bots should be programmed to respect a publisher's access controls. 2 Output should be shaped so answers sit far enough from the article retrieved. 2
Google argued that publishers who leave their articles open consent to this use. 2 He said Google's claim that its Google-Extended protocol lets a site refuse grounding without losing search visibility would need verification. 2 Findings of implicit consent, he added, look "far-fetched" at this stage. 2
For a newsroom, the opinion converts into evidence worth keeping. A paywall or a scraping control in place before the answer appeared supports the first limb. 2 Dated captures of the same recognisable answer to several related queries support the second. 2
The advice binds nobody. The Court may adopt, narrow or reject it, and the Hungarian case carries on either way. 1 No date is set for the judgment. 1
Türkiye: an AI opt-out that costs no search ranking
Türkiye's competition authority, the Rekabet Kurumu, published on Monday 2 November 2026 a decision its board took on 8 October 2026. 3 The file is 2026-1-030; the decision is numbered 26-37/1000-423. 4
The file began with a confidential complaint received on 21 July 2026, followed by a supplementary complaint on 17 August. 4 The board ordered a formal investigation on 27 August 2026, in decision 26-31/932-M. 4
The investigation tests Article 6 of Law No. 4054, which prohibits abuse of a dominant position. 3 The conduct under examination is Google's use of news content in AI Overviews, the summaries it writes above search results, and in AI Mode, its conversational search. 3
The decision records Google's share of general search in Türkiye above 94% in each of the past three years. 4
The board also found that evidence of conduct it calls discriminatory and exploitative had reached the level of strong suspicion. 3 That finding let it act before the investigation ends, through interim measures under Article 9(4) of the same law. 3
The measures bind five entities the decision treats as one undertaking: Alphabet Inc., Google LLC, Google International LLC, Google Ireland Limited, and Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd. Şti. 4 Google must:
- treat equivalent publishers alike, on objective, transparent and pre-determined criteria, when it uses, summarises or synthesises their content; 4
- negotiate in good faith with any publisher that wants a contract, on criteria that weigh the extent of use, the engagement the summaries generate, and the effect on that publisher's traffic, visibility and advertising revenue; 4
- leave a publisher's ranking, visibility, indexing and traffic in Search, News or other Google services untouched when that publisher declines a contract or rejects its terms, and say so clearly; 4
- give publishers periodic, verifiable data on how often their content is used, how often it appears as a source in an answer, what engagement follows, and how much traffic comes back; 4
- build mechanisms, technical and commercial, that let an opt-out from AI Overviews and AI Mode work independently of a publisher's choices about visibility and indexing elsewhere, and confirm that in plain terms; 4
- leave signed contracts standing, without terms that reduce publishers' existing rights and interests; 4
- apply no different or additional terms to a new publisher, or in a renegotiation, that would distort competition against similarly placed publishers; 4
- report to the authority at intervals, with auditable data, on how it is complying. 4
The three-month clock runs from service. Google has three months from service of the reasoned decision to put the measures in place. 4 Where it has not, an administrative fine under Article 17(1)(a) applies from the end of that period. 4
The decision was published on 2 November 2026, so three months runs to early February 2027, unless service fell on another day. 4 Google can challenge the decision in the Ankara administrative courts within 60 days of service. 4
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority imposed a comparable requirement on Google on 3 June 2026. 5 It gives publishers an opt-out from their content powering AI features in search. It also requires clear links in AI-generated results, adds an opt-out from fine-tuning, and allows nine months to implement. 5
The two proceedings are separate cases before separate authorities: the same company, the same products, two sets of duties. 35 The British nine months run out on 3 March 2027, about a month after the Turkish period.
For a Turkish publisher the change is a choice that costs nothing: keep the content out of the summaries, keep the search ranking. 4 The choice exists once the mechanism does, which is what the three months are for. 4
Google's duties apply in the Turkish market, and the full reasoning is published for other authorities to read. 4
The compliance clock
| Date | What happens | Who it binds | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 November 2026 | The European Commission's targeted consultation on technology and copyright closes | Anyone who chooses to respond | European Commission |
| 2 December 2026 | EU AI Act: Article 5(1) points (ba) and (bb), and Articles 5(1a) and (1b), begin to apply | Providers and deployers of the systems those provisions name | Article 113 |
| Early February 2027 | Three months from service of the Turkish decision end, and fines can begin | The five Google entities | Decision 26-37/1000-423 |
| 3 March 2027 | Nine months from the CMA's requirement of 3 June 2026 end | Competition and Markets Authority |
The next hard dates
The nearest date asks nothing of a newsroom except attention: the Commission's copyright consultation closes on 10 November. 6
The first date that changes an obligation is 2 December 2026. That day the AI Act's restrictions on systems producing intimate material and child sexual abuse material begin to apply. 7
References
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7Article 113: Entry into force and application, AI Act Service Desk
ai-act-service-desk.ec.europa.eu
This story was produced automatically by a channel. One sentence is all it takes for Neodrop to keep producing for you.