NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / – Three leading U.S. publishers have initiated legal action against Google, accusing the tech giant of copyright infringement related to its Gemini artificial intelligence platform. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier filed a proposed class-action lawsuit 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 acquired material from Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. The complaint states that publishers and authors contributed works to facilitate search, sales, and research functions. However, it asserts these agreements did not permit Google to copy the content for commercial AI training purposes. The lawsuit further accuses Google of utilizing web-scraped datasets that included content from illegal sites and subscription services protected by paywalls.
Google faces four allegations outlined in the 57-page complaint. Three of these claims involve illegal reproduction through Google’s 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, including author names, ownership details, and publication data. As of July 15, the court had yet to rule on the allegations or grant class-action status.
Four allegations focus on Gemini’s training data
The proposed class encompasses owners of registered U.S. copyrights in books and journal articles. Eligible books must have an International Standard Book Number, while eligible articles require a Digital Object Identifier or International Standard Serial Number. This definition covers works Google allegedly copied from its services, downloaded via web scraping, or reproduced during Gemini’s development. It also limits eligibility to works registered within the timelines specified in the complaint.
The lawsuit cites works from Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier as examples of the alleged copying. It includes fiction, textbooks, and scholarly materials among the affected categories. The filing also references internal Google assessments concerning legal risks tied to publisher-provided books. One such assessment reportedly warned of potential fines between $10 billion and $100 billion, according to the plaintiffs. The court has not issued any rulings on these internal records.
Claims for damages and transparency demanded
The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages or actual damages along with profits from any proven infringement. They also request an injunction, reimbursement of legal expenses, and a jury trial. Their proposed order would compel 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 the total amount of damages sought.
This New York case follows an earlier effort by Hachette and Cengage to incorporate similar Google AI copyright claims into separate litigation in California. The Association of American Publishers noted that the new case preserves claims outside the scope of that proceeding. The current suit involves Elsevier, Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., along with the two publishers. It requests that the New York court determine whether Google’s Gemini training practices and data collection violate federal copyright law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.