NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / – Three leading U.S. publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of copyright infringement related to its Gemini artificial intelligence platform. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier have initiated a proposed class action alongside author Scott Turow and his firm, S.C.R.I.B.E. They submitted the complaint on July 10 in a federal court in New York. The suit claims Google unlawfully copied millions of copyrighted books and journal articles without authorization during the development and training of Gemini models.
According to the plaintiffs, Google acquired the content via Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. The publishers and authors had provided their works to facilitate search, sales, and research functionalities, as outlined in the complaint. The filing asserts that these arrangements did not permit Google to copy the materials for commercial AI training purposes. It further accuses Google of utilizing web-scraped datasets that included works from pirate sites and subscription services protected behind paywalls.
Google faces four allegations within the 57-page complaint. Three of these claims involve illegal reproduction via Google services, web scraping, and the development or training of Gemini. The fourth involves violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The plaintiffs allege Google removed or altered copyright management information, including author names, ownership data, and publication details. As of July 15, the court had yet to rule on these allegations or grant class-action status.
Four allegations focus on Gemini’s training data
The proposed class includes owners of registered U.S. copyrights in books and journal articles. Eligible works must have an International Standard Book Number for books or a Digital Object Identifier and International Standard Serial Number for articles. This definition pertains to works Google is accused of copying from its services, downloading via web scraping, or reproducing during Gemini’s development. Eligibility is also limited to works registered within the deadlines specified in the complaint.
The complaint cites works from Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier as examples of what was allegedly copied. It covers fiction, textbooks, and scholarly materials. The filing also references alleged internal Google evaluations concerning legal risks related to publisher-supplied books. One internal assessment reportedly warned of potential fines ranging from $10 billion to $100 billion, according to the plaintiffs. No court ruling has been made regarding these internal documents.
Plaintiffs demand damages and transparency
The plaintiffs seek statutory damages or actual damages plus profits from any confirmed infringement. They additionally request an injunction, coverage of legal costs, and a jury trial. Their proposed order would compel Google to disclose the materials and methods used to train Gemini. The complaint also calls for court supervision of the destruction of any unauthorized copies under Google’s control. The total amount of damages sought remains unspecified.
This New York case follows an earlier effort by Hachette and Cengage to include similar Google AI copyright claims in a separate lawsuit in California. The Association of American Publishers stated that the new case preserves claims outside the scope of that proceeding’s proposed class. The current suit involves Elsevier, Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., alongside the two publishers. It aims for the New York court to assess whether Google’s Gemini training practices and data collection violate federal copyright law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.