Google faces class-action lawsuit from major publishers over Gemini AI training on copyrighted works

A group of publishers and authors have filed a class-action lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of using their copyrighted works to train its AI platform, Gemini, without authorization. The plaintiffs include Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E.

The lawsuit further alleges that Google intentionally removed or altered copyright information on these works to "conceal that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials." The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

This is the latest in a wave of lawsuits from publishers, authors, and copyright holders against AI companies including Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. While two early California court decisions favored AI companies on "fair use" grounds, Anthropic was fined $1.5 billion for pirating training works — the largest payout in U.S. copyright history, with roughly half a million writers eligible for payments of at least $3,000.

The publishers' case against Google has a crucial difference: they have a long, nuanced relationship with the company. Publishers previously provided copyrighted works to Google specifically for Google Books, a search tool that displays short snippets and bibliographic information rather than full books. The plaintiffs claim Google used copies of these books — along with books from Google Play — to train Gemini without obtaining permission for that purpose.

"Google illegally copied works from all these scope-limited programs for AI training, knowing it lacked authorization to do so," the lawsuit reads. The plaintiffs also cite an internal Google document allegedly stating that using copyrighted books for AI training could be "highly problematic for Google" and might result in "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines."

The California fair-use rulings don't establish binding precedent, giving the New York judge an opportunity to weigh in from a different legal perspective. Unlike the Meta and Anthropic cases, Google's existing licensing relationship with publishers strengthens the argument that the company exceeded the scope of its authorized use.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The outcome could set a critical precedent for how AI training data intersects with existing content licensing agreements.