Major U.S. publishers Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier, alongside author Scott Turow, filed a class-action lawsuit against Google in New York federal court. The complaint accuses the company of massive copyright infringement for training its Gemini AI models on millions of books without permission.
The lawsuit alleges Google illegally repurposed works from its Google Books and Google Play programs. Plaintiffs claim the tech giant also utilized materials from pirate sources and intentionally removed copyright information.
Internal documents cited in the suit reportedly indicate Google recognized the high financial risks of using copyrighted books for AI development.