NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / – Three leading U.S. publishing companies have initiated legal action against Google, accusing the tech giant of copyright violations related to its Gemini artificial intelligence platform. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier filed a proposed class-action suit alongside author Scott Turow and his firm, S.C.R.I.B.E. The complaint was submitted on July 10 in a federal court in New York. It claims Google replicated millions of copyrighted books and journal articles without authorization during the development and training of Gemini models.
According to the plaintiffs, Google accessed the protected material via Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. These works had been provided by publishers and authors to support search functions, commercial sales, and scholarly research. The lawsuit contends that such arrangements did not permit Google to copy these works for the purpose of AI training. Additionally, it accuses Google of utilizing web-scraped datasets that included content from piracy sites and subscription-based services behind paywalls.
Google faces four allegations in the 57-page complaint. Three of these involve unlawful reproduction via Google services, web scraping, and the training or development of Gemini. The fourth claim invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleging Google removed or altered copyright management information such as author names, ownership details, and publication data. As of July 15, the court had yet to rule on these claims or grant class-action status.
Four Allegations Focus on Gemini Training Data
The proposed class includes owners of registered U.S. copyrights in books and journal articles. To qualify, books must have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and articles must possess a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). This definition pertains to works allegedly copied from Google’s services, obtained through web scraping, or reproduced during Gemini’s training process. The class is limited to works registered within the deadlines specified in the complaint.
The lawsuit cites works from Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier as examples of the alleged copying. It covers fiction, textbooks, and academic materials. The filing further references internal Google evaluations concerning legal risks associated with publisher-supplied books. One such assessment reportedly warned of potential fines ranging from $10 billion to $100 billion, though the court has not yet examined these internal documents.
Plaintiffs Demand Damages and Transparency
The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages or actual damages plus any profits attributable to proven infringement. They also request an injunction, legal expenses, and a jury trial. Their proposed court order would require Google to disclose the materials and methods used to train Gemini. Additionally, they ask the court to oversee the destruction of unauthorized copies under Google’s control. The complaint does not specify a total damages amount.
This New York case follows an earlier effort by Hachette and Cengage to include similar copyright claims in a separate Google AI litigation in California. The Association of American Publishers noted that the new lawsuit preserves claims outside the scope of that case. The current action involves Elsevier, Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., alongside the two publishers. It seeks a judicial determination on whether Google’s Gemini training practices and data collection infringe federal copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.