Publishers sue Google, allege Gemini was trained on copyrighted books without permission

Google is facing a fresh copyright challenge after a group of leading publishers and bestselling author Scott Turow sued the technology giant, alleging it used millions of copyrighted books without permission to train its Gemini artificial intelligence models.

The proposed class action, filed in a federal court in New York, has been brought by Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Turow and his publishing company, S.C.R.I.B.E. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status, an injunction to halt the alleged conduct and unspecified damages.

According to the complaint, Google repurposed books that had originally been provided for services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. While those agreements permitted limited uses including searchable snippets and ebook distribution, the publishers argue they did not authorise the use of the works for training commercial AI systems.

The lawsuit alleges Google copied copyrighted books without consent or compensation despite internally recognising the legal risks. It also claims Gemini can generate long-form content that could directly compete with original works, potentially undermining authors' livelihoods and publishers' commercial interests.

Among the titles cited in the complaint are The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin and Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket, which the plaintiffs claim were used without permission.

The case adds to a widening legal battle over the use of copyrighted content in generative AI development. Google joins a growing list of AI companies, including Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic, that have faced lawsuits from authors and publishers over AI training practices. The dispute comes amid increasing scrutiny of how AI developers source training data and whether existing copyright laws adequately address the rapid expansion of generative AI.