Google faces class action lawsuit from major publishers over alleged AI training copyright violations

Google faces another AI training lawsuit from major publishers

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. The group of plaintiffs, which includes Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., also alleges that Google intentionally removed or changed copyright information on these works to "conceal... that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials," according to the lawsuit. This lawsuit is just one of many complaints that publishers, authors, and other copyright holders have filed against AI companies such as Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. While many of these lawsuits are still pending, two early court decisions in California have favored the AI companies, ruling that the use of copyrighted works for AI training is considered "fair use" under U.S. copyright law that has not been updated since before the existence of the internet. Anthropic was, however, fined $1.5 billion for pirating the works it trained on, marking the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law. Around half a million writers were eligible for payments of at least $3,000. However, many authors opted out of receiving the settlement so that they could pursue further legal action over AI training. The California judges' decisions don't bode well for how other courts may view the tech companies' fair use defense, but the conflict is too nuanced for these rulings to establish an inarguable precedent. The lawsuit against Google was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, giving a different judge the opportunity to weigh in. In the Google case, the publishers have a more nuanced, long-term relationship with the company. The lawsuit explains that publishers and authors have a long history of providing Google with copyrighted works for the specific purpose of making books searchable through Google Books. These search results do not allow users to view entire books. Instead, they provide access to short snippets of the book along with bibliographic information. The plaintiffs claim that Google trained Gemini on copies of these books, as well as books uploaded to the Google Play store, even though it never received permission to do so. "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 document from Google that allegedly states that using copyrighted books for AI training could be "highly problematic for Google" and might result in "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines." Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google Faces Another Lawsuit Alleging Its AI Violated Copyrights

Google "cashed in" on its relationships with publishers to share their works online "by brazenly copying millions of copyrighted works" to train its AI in violation of copyright law, a new lawsuit from publishers and authors alleges. Hachette Book Group, Cengage, Elsevier and author Scott Turow filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on July 10. If those names sound familiar, it may be because they teamed with publishers McGraw-Hill and Macmillan to sue Meta over similar claims in May. "The scale and speed at which Gemini can create books and compete with human writers is unprecedented," the complaint says, "and it can only do that because Google copied plaintiffs' and the class's works to train its AI." Google and lawyers for the publishers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In this specific case, the publishers are claiming that Google used their copyrighted content, available on the web and through Google Books, to train Gemini, without permission or compensation. This is a common claim among the many copyright infringement lawsuits brought against AI companies. Copyright is one of the most contentious legal issues for generative AI. Companies making AI need vast quantities of data to make their models better. Humans create much of that data, and a lot of what humans create is copyright-protected. So when AI companies scrape this data from the open web or acquire it through other means, lawsuits abound. Google has been sued for copyright infringement before. Disney slapped Google with a cease-and-desist order in December, when its Nano Banana AI image model and other video models were, in Disney's words, taking a "free ride off Disney's intellectual property" by creating AI content featuring its iconic characters. AI has become one of the most controversial issues in publishing. Hachette canceled the US release of horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard after multiple allegations that she used generative AI to write the book, angering the book community and violating the publisher's rules. In two major copyright lawsuits against Anthropic and Meta, the courts last year sided with the AI companies. But both judges were careful to say that future cases could swing the other way. In the new lawsuit from Hachette and others, the plaintiffs wrote, "Copyright law applies to AI companies, including Google, with the same force as every other company that has complied with these laws for decades."

Three publishers challenge Google over AI copyright infringement - Engadget

It's the latest in a barrage of efforts to win compensation from AI companies over training materials. A trio of publishers and one author are seeking a class action lawsuit against Google on claims that the tech company broke copyright law by using their works to train its Gemini AI. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning and Elsevier are the plaintiff companies and writer Scott Turow is the individual behind this effort. "Google reproduced millions of copyrighted works without permission, without providing any compensation to authors or publishers, and with full knowledge that its conduct violated copyright law," the complaint alleges. "Google also stripped CMI from the copyrighted works it stole to conceal its training sources and facilitate their unauthorized use." In addition to the alleged copyright infringement for training, the complaint argues that Gemini allows and sometimes even encourages the creation of copycat works, again without credit or compensation to the authors or their publishers. The suit states that: "Google also knows that absent appropriate guardrails, Gemini will continue to produce outputs that substitute for copyrighted works on which it was trained. Yet Google has failed to implement effective guardrails." The literary world has made several attempts to make deals with the AI companies that have scraped and trained large language models off of their protected works. In fact, a group including several of the same parties already have a similar class action suit underway against Meta. However, cases based on copyright infringement haven't seen much success to date. A separate group of writers landed an initial settlement of $1.5 billion with Anthropic in 2025 for a copyright infringement-turned-piracy case against the Claude chatbot creator, but it was rejected by the judge overseeing the case for being "nowhere near complete." Similar efforts by authors to tackle copyright infringement by Meta's AI operation fell short last year. A different pair of authors has also tried to take on Apple for unlicensed use of their creations for AI training. That's just a sampling from the publishing world.

Google Gemini lawsuit: publishers sue over AI training

Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and the author Scott Turow have filed a Google Gemini lawsuit in New York, claiming the company copied millions of books and journal articles to train its AI without permission. The complaint calls it "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history." Google has not commented. A group of major book publishers and the author Scott Turow have sued Google, claiming it used millions of copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI without permission. The Google Gemini lawsuit calls it "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history." The plaintiffs filed the complaint on 10 July in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs are Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E. They are seeking class-action status. The publishers say Google copied their books and journal articles to train Gemini, its generative AI system, without permission or payment. The Guardian first reported the claims, which the complaint sets out in full. What the lawsuit alleges The suit centres on works Google obtained for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. Those services let Google show searchable snippets or sell ebooks. They did not, the plaintiffs argue, allow Google to copy the works to train commercial AI. "Google illegally copied works from all these scope-limited programs for AI training, knowing it lacked authorization to do so," the complaint reads. It also alleges Google used web scrapes from "known pirate sources" and from behind paywalls. The case brings four counts. Three fall under the Copyright Act. The fourth, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleges Google removed or altered copyright information to hide that Gemini had trained on the works. The plaintiffs also cite an internal Google document. According to the filing, it warned that training on copyrighted books could be "highly problematic" and expose the company to "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines." The harm the publishers describe The publishers argue Gemini now competes directly with the works it trained on. They say its outputs range from near-verbatim copies to replacement textbook chapters and knockoff novels. The complaint gives an example. It says Gemini can produce a 100-page murder mystery in about 20 minutes for 39 cents. "No publisher or author can compete with that," it states. The suit names specific titles it says Google used. They include NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season and Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour? The filing also notes that Alphabet reported its first $100 billion revenue quarter in October 2025, which it linked to Google's AI business. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages and a permanent injunction. They also want an order requiring Google to destroy any unauthorised copies used in training. Google did not respond to requests for comment. A wider legal fight The case joins a growing set of copyright suits against AI companies. Authors and publishers have also taken OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta to court over training data. That includes a landmark fight with news outlets, and a separate case involving film studios. The same publishers sued Meta earlier this year. Two rulings in California last year went in the AI companies' favour on fair use. Both judges said future cases could still go the other way. Anthropic separately agreed to pay $1.5bn to authors over pirated copies, the largest copyright payout in US history. Some rights holders have chosen licensing deals with AI firms instead of court. Google, which builds the Gemini models, already licenses some content for training but chose unauthorised sources, the plaintiffs allege. A New York judge will now weigh the claims.

Hatchette and Elsevier Sue Google for Using Their Work to Train AI

Major publishers Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier have filed a lawsuit against Google alleging that Google used their work to train its AI chatbot Gemini. Scott Turow, the author of crime thrillers like Presumed Innocent, has also joined the suit which is seeking class action status. The lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that Google "reproduced millions of copyrighted works without permission, without providing any compensation to authors or publishers, and with full knowledge that its conduct violated copyright law." Hachette is the third largest book publisher in the U.S. behind Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, the latter of which signed a licensing deal with Microsoft in 2024 to provide its books to be training AI models, according to Bloomberg. Cengage Learning is a large education publisher that provides access to educational materials like textbooks and Elsevier is an academic publisher of journals like The Lancet and Cell. The plaintiffs allege Google illegally copied their books and journal articles, including from "known pirate sources," to train its AI models. From the lawsuit: The result is an AI system that competes directly with Plaintiffs' and the Class's works in the market. Those substitutes take multiple forms, including verbatim and near-verbatim copies of portions or entire works, replacement chapters of academic textbooks, summaries and alternative versions of famous novels, and inferior knockoffs that copy creative elements of original works. Gemini even tailors outputs to mimic the expressive elements and creative choices of specific authors. Elsevier, Cengage, Turow, and Hachette all sued Meta earlier this year over allegations that it used their work to train AI. The copyright harm outlined in the suit The new suit against Google argues that Gemini creates a product that traditional publishers can't compete with, claiming that an AI chatbot can instantly create a 100-page murder mystery in 20 minutes "for a mere $0.39." "The scale and speed at which Gemini can create books and compete with human writers is unprecedented, and it can only do that because Google copied Plaintiffs' and the Class's works to train its AI," the lawsuit claims. The publishers also claim that all of Google's copyright infringement was willful and if it wanted to properly license their content for training purposes, that was something the tech giant could've paid for. The lawsuit notes the incredible amount of money that Google makes each quarter ($100 billion revenue in Oct. 2025) and says that's driven by Google's AI business. Gemini has over 650 million monthly active users. "While AI technology may be new, the legal principles at the center of this case are not," the lawsuit says. "Copyright law applies to AI companies, including Google, with the same force as every other company that has complied with these laws for decades." "If left unaddressed, Google will continue to infringe Plaintiffs' and the Class's rights, cause broad and lasting damage to the literary industry and authors, and weaken the incentive to create that is at the core of the Copyright Act." Google didn't respond to questions emailed Tuesday. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.

Book publishers sue Google for copyright infringement over Gemini AI training

Group of major publishers accuses the tech giant of 'one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history' A group of major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using millions of copyrighted books to help build its Gemini artificial intelligence models, in "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history". The case, filed in federal court in New York, has been brought by three publishers - Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier - and bestselling American author Scott Turow. The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways - for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks - but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products. "Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of 'Don't be evil' and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history," the suit states. According to the complaint, the tech company made copies of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, despite internal discussions acknowledging the legal risks. The filing claims Google flagged internally that it could face "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines" for using texts provided by publishers for Google Play Books. The publishers say Google's actions are harming authors and the wider publishing industry, arguing that AI-generated content could negatively impact book sales. It notes that, for example, Gemini could generate "a 100-page murder mystery set in a quiet seaside town filled with secrets, that substitutes for an original copyrighted murder mystery on which Gemini trained" in 20 minutes for 39 cents. "No publisher or author can compete with that." The lawsuit names a number of specific books that the publishers allege were among the copyrighted works used without permission, including NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season, and Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour? The case adds to a growing legal battle over generative AI and copyright. Authors and publishers have filed a series of lawsuits against Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, alleging that their copyrighted works were used without permission to train AI models. These include a copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors in which a judge ruled in Meta's favour last June, and a landmark settlement in which Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5bn to authors who alleged pirated copies of their books were used to train the AI chatbot Claude. Earlier this year, thousands of authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman published an "empty" book to protest against AI firms using their work without permission. The new case follows an earlier attempt by Hachette and Cengage to join an existing copyright lawsuit against Google brought by authors and illustrators in 2023. Google has opposed their participation in that case, prompting the publishers to launch a separate action. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages, a permanent injunction preventing Google from continuing the alleged infringement, and a court order requiring the company to destroy any unauthorised copies of their works used in training its AI systems. Google did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.

Publishers sue Google over alleged use of books to train AI models

Book publishers sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech giant of illegally using copyrighted works to train its artificial intelligence models and generate content that competes with human authors. The lawsuit marks the latest legal battle over how AI developers use books and other creative works to build their systems. Multiple book publishers sued Google on Tuesday for allegedly stealing copyrighted content, using it to train artificial intelligence (AI) models and then generating content that "directly" competes with the original authors' work. "The scale and speed at which Gemini can create books and compete with human writers is unprecedented," the lawsuit says. The lawsuit, which requests class action status, was filed in New York by Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, author Scott Turow and his publishing company S.C.R.I.B.E. They allege that "Google secretly copied millions of works" that were provided to Google Books and other services for "limited purposes" and then used that content to train Gemini, its AI model. Furthermore, they claim the content generated by Gemini directly competes with the authors who wrote the original work. "Gemini even tailors outputs to mimic the expressive elements and creative choices of specific authors," the lawsuit says. Read moreCould a controversial award-winning short story signal a new era of literary 'AI slop'? The plaintiffs requested an injunction and an unspecified amount of damages. It's the latest copyright infringement lawsuit brought against AI developers. In May, multiple publishers - including Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier and Turow - sued Meta on similar grounds in a New York court. A US judge in September approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and several authors who claimed the San Francisco company illegally copied their work to train its AI model, Claude. It was a partial victory for Anthropic - a judge ruled that the company's use of books to train Claude was transformative enough to constitute "fair use" under US law but that other uses of pirated materials were not. Meta also won a partial victory last year when a US judge in San Francisco ruled that its use of copyrighted materials was "fair use". That case was filed by comedian Sarah Silverman, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and others.

Publishers accuse Google of stealing copyrighted content in new lawsuit

Multiple book publishers sued Google on Tuesday for allegedly stealing copyrighted content, using it to train artificial intelligence (AI) models and then generating content that "directly" competes with the original authors' work. Furthermore, they claim the content generated by Gemini directly competes with the authors who wrote the original work. Washington: Multiple book publishers sued Google on Tuesday for allegedly stealing copyrighted content, using it to train artificial intelligence (AI) models and then generating content that "directly" competes with the original authors' work. "The scale and speed at which Gemini can create books and compete with human writers is unprecedented," the lawsuit says. The lawsuit, which requests class action status, was filed in New York by Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, author Scott Turow and his publishing company S.C.R.I.B.E. Also read: Writers Guild sues to block Paramount deal, saying it would hurt writers They allege that "Google secretly copied millions of works" that were provided to Google Books and other services for "limited purposes" and then used that content to train Gemini, its AI model. Furthermore, they claim the content generated by Gemini directly competes with the authors who wrote the original work. "Gemini even tailors outputs to mimic the expressive elements and creative choices of specific authors," the lawsuit says. The plaintiffs requested an injunction and an unspecified amount of damages. It's the latest copyright infringement lawsuit brought against AI developers. In May, multiple publishers -- including Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier and Turow -- sued Meta on similar grounds in a New York court. A US judge in September approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and several authors who claimed the San Francisco company illegally copied their work to train its AI model, Claude. Also read: Apple sues OpenAI, two former employees for trade secrets theft It was a partial victory for Anthropic -- a judge ruled that the company's use of books to train Claude was transformative enough to constitute "fair use" under US law but that other uses of pirated materials was not. Meta also won a partial victory last year when a US judge in San Francisco ruled that its use of copyrighted materials was "fair use." That case was filed by comedian Sarah Silverman, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and others.

Google Sued Over Gemini AI Training on Copyrighted Books

You can access the lawsuit from here. A group of publishers and authors has filed a class action lawsuit against Google in a New York federal court, accusing the company of illegally copying millions of copyrighted books and journal articles to develop and train its Gemini artificial intelligence models. Who filed the lawsuit: The plaintiffs include Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E. Inc. They allege that Google committed large-scale copyright infringement by copying copyrighted works from its own book services, downloading books and articles through web scraping, repeatedly reproducing them during AI training, and removing copyright management information (CMI) in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The complaint opens with a sharp allegation against Google, saying, "Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of 'Don't be evil' and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history." It further alleges, "Google first illegally copied millions of books and journal articles... Google then copied those stolen works many times over to train its multi-billion-dollar generative AI system called Gemini." According to the plaintiffs, "Google reproduced millions of copyrighted works without permission, without providing any compensation to authors or publishers." Use of Google's own services: According to the lawsuit, Google copied books that had been provided for limited purposes through services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar, and later reused those works to train Gemini without obtaining fresh permission from publishers or authors. The complaint argues that these services were created to help users discover, search or buy books, not to supply training material for commercial AI systems. The publishers also allege that Google copied books and journal articles from internet datasets created through web scraping, including material allegedly obtained from pirate websites such as Z-Library, OceanofPDF, WeLib and other sources, as well as content behind paywalls. They claim Google later copied these works multiple times while converting them into training datasets and model parameters for successive versions of Gemini. Google allegedly knew the risks: The complaint argues that Google knew the legal risks. It cites internal documents that allegedly described using "Publisher Provided [] copyrighted books" from Google Play Books as "highly problematic for Google," warning of "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines." Another internal assessment allegedly stated, "Book publishers [are] likely to see LLM training on their books as copyright infringement. Could withdraw their content from Google Play Books [or] file a lawsuit against Google." The lawsuit also quotes Gemini's lead engineer as saying, "we don't do deals for data we already have or already possess." The plaintiffs further claim Google's internal documents show copyrighted books were considered necessary to improve AI performance. One document allegedly states, "It is important to emphasize that the team is keen to get access to high volume/high quality books asap and that format is critical." Another reportedly concluded that "using only public domain books to train the model... resulted in lower performance." The complaint also quotes an early Google AI developer as saying, "the current competitive landscape will force Google's hand to develop AI faster... As a consequence, responsibility and ethical practice might be bypassed." Examples cited by the plaintiffs: To support its claims, the lawsuit cites several examples of Gemini's outputs. It alleges the chatbot reproduced parts of economist N. Gregory Mankiw's textbook Principles of Economics, generated a detailed summary of Scott Turow's Innocent after being prompted by a user who said they did not want to buy the book, and produced an imitation of Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour? that copied key creative elements. The complaint also cites Gemini's response about N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, where the chatbot said, "Yes, the information included in that response comes directly from my internal training data." It also quotes Gemini's "Thinking" mode stating, "My response is a definite 'yes.'... the data includes the full text or sufficient extracts of The Fifth Season..." The lawsuit presents these chatbot responses as evidence, though Google is likely to dispute whether they accurately describe how the models were trained. The publishers argue that Gemini now competes directly with the books used to train it. "The result is an AI system that competes directly with Plaintiffs' and the Class's works in the market," the complaint says. It also claims, "Gemini can generate a 100-page murder mystery... in 20 minutes for a mere $0.39. No publisher or author can compete with that." The lawsuit further alleges that Gemini sometimes encourages requests for copyrighted material by responding, "That's a fantastic idea!" while suggesting prompts to generate additional infringing content. Economic harm alleged: The plaintiffs allege Google's actions have reduced book sales, undermined a growing market for licensing copyrighted works for AI training, and flooded the market with AI-generated substitutes for books and academic works. The complaint notes that Google already licenses some content for AI training from companies such as the Associated Press, Reddit and Shutterstock, but alleges it chose not to obtain similar licences from book publishers whose works it already had access to. The lawsuit also links the alleged infringement to Google's expanding AI business, noting that Alphabet reported its first $100 billion revenue quarter in October 2025 and said the Gemini app had crossed 650 million monthly active users. The plaintiffs argue Google has profited from AI built using copyrighted works without paying authors or publishers. The plaintiffs are seeking certification of a class of affected copyright owners, damages for alleged copyright infringement and DMCA violations, disgorgement of Google's profits, permanent injunctions to stop the alleged infringement, destruction of infringing copies where required, and a jury trial. The complaint concludes, "Copyright law applies to AI companies, including Google, with the same force as every other company that has complied with these laws for decades." Why it matters: The lawsuit adds to a growing legal battle over whether AI companies can use copyrighted works to train their models without permission. Two recent California rulings held that AI companies could claim "fair use" when training models on copyrighted works under US copyright law. However, a court ordered Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion for training its AI on pirated books. Because publishers filed the Google case in a New York federal court, a different judge will now decide whether Google's fair use defence applies. Unlike many other AI copyright cases, the publishers argue Google had access to their books only for limited services such as Google Books, which displays short snippets, and Google Play Books. They allege Google later used copies from those services to train Gemini without obtaining fresh permission, making the dispute distinct from cases involving content scraped solely from the open web.

Google faces new Gemini training lawsuit: publishers cite copyrighted books

Publishers seek damages, injunction, and deletion of Gemini training copies Google is facing a new class-action lawsuit, filed July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In it, Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow accuse the company of using copyrighted books and journals without permission to build Gemini, the complaint says. The filing describes Google's conduct as one of the largest acts of copyright infringement in history. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and Scott Turow say Google drew on millions of protected books , academic works, and journals for Gemini after first getting access to them through narrower programs such as Google Books and Google Play. Their argument is that Google then took those digital copies and reused them for a commercial system far outside the original scope. The suit brings claims of direct infringement, contributory infringement, and DMCA violations tied to copyright management information that was allegedly removed or altered, according to the complaint. It asks for statutory damages, a permanent injunction, and the destruction of unauthorized training copies. The filing also argues that Gemini now competes in the same market as the books it was trained on, pointing to the claim that "you can get a 100-page murder mystery in 20 minutes for about 39 cents," and naming titles including The Fifth Season and Who Could That Be at This Hour? If you've been following the AI copyright cases, this one matters. The complaint cites internal concern about exposure in the tens to hundreds of billions, and it arrives at a moment when California rulings and a recent books settlement have pulled the field in different directions. You can read the complaint through the federal court filing in New York.