A group of major publishers and authors filed a class action lawsuit against Google in July 2026, alleging the company used copyrighted works without permission to train its AI platform, Gemini.
The plaintiffs — which include Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E. — claim Google not only trained Gemini on their works without authorization, but also intentionally removed or altered copyright information on those works to “conceal… that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials,” according to the lawsuit. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Central to the complaint is the publishers’ longstanding relationship with Google. The plaintiffs say they previously provided Google with copyrighted books specifically to power Google Books, a service that surfaces short text snippets and bibliographic information — not full book content. They allege Google went further, training Gemini on those same books, as well as titles uploaded to Google Play, without ever receiving permission to do so. The lawsuit also cites an internal Google document allegedly acknowledging that using copyrighted books for AI training could be “highly problematic” and might result in “$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines.”
The case joins a growing number of copyright complaints filed against AI companies including Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Two early California court decisions have sided with AI companies, ruling that training on copyrighted material qualifies as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law. However, those rulings do not constitute binding precedent, and the New York filing gives a different judge the opportunity to reach a different conclusion.
Anthropic was previously fined $1.5 billion in what was described as the largest payout in U.S. copyright history, with roughly half a million writers eligible for payments of at least $3,000. Many authors opted out of that settlement to pursue further legal action. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: TechCrunch