Trends

Publishers seek to join lawsuit against Google over AI training

Major publishers seek to join a lawsuit against Google, alleging copyrighted books were used without permission to train its Gemini AI model.

Headline

Major publishers seek to join a lawsuit against Google, alleging copyrighted books were used without permission to train its Gemini AI model.

Context

Judge Eumi K. Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California received a motion from publishers Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group requesting permission to join a class action lawsuit against Google. Illustrators and authors filed the initial lawsuit in 2023, claiming that Google’s generative AI product, Gemini , was trained on millions of copyrighted works—including books and textbooks—without authorization, rather than licensing them. In addition to offering their knowledge on legal, factual, and evidentiary issues in the case, the publishers wish to represent a larger class that includes publishing houses whose rights they claim have also been violated.

Evidence

Pending intelligence enrichment.

Analysis

Google has argued that adding publishers to the class would complicate things within the class. In response, the publishers argue that their involvement will make the lawsuit stronger, citing other AI copyright cases where publishers and authors were able to reach a sizable settlement, like Bartz v. Anthropic. According to the complaint, Gemini can produce full books that directly compete with original titles in addition to reproducing verbatim or nearly verbatim text from copyrighted works. For example, it can produce a 100-page novel in minutes for a fraction of the cost a human author would incur. The publishers are seeking an injunction to halt further unauthorised use of copyrighted material and an order for Google to destroy infringing copies. This legal move draws attention to the growing conflict between AI developers and traditional content producers regarding the fundamentals of generative AI training. AI companies are facing an increasing number of lawsuits; last year, Anthropic, an AI company, agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a separate copyright class action brought by authors, and legal challenges involving other media companies and tech giants are still growing.

Key Points

Publishers Hachette and Cengage seek to join a class action accusing Google of widespread unauthorised use of book content to train its Gemini AI.
The move could reshape how copyright law applies to generative AI training and strengthen claims for damages and injunctions.