Book publishers sue Google for copyright infringement over Gemini AI training

A group of major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using millions of copyrighted books to help build its Gemini artificial intelligence models, in “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history”.

The case, filed in federal court in New York, has been brought by three publishers – Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier – and bestselling American author Scott Turow.

The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways – for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks – but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products.

“Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of ‘Don’t be evil’ and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history,” the suit states.

According to the complaint, the tech company made copies of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, despite internal discussions acknowledging the legal risks. The filing claims Google flagged internally that it could face “$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines” for using texts provided by publishers for Google Play Books.

The publishers say Google’s actions are harming authors and the wider publishing industry, arguing that AI-generated content could negatively impact book sales.

It notes that, for example, Gemini could generate “a 100-page murder mystery set in a quiet seaside town filled with secrets, that substitutes for an original copyrighted murder mystery on which Gemini trained” in 20 minutes for 39 cents. “No publisher or author can compete with that.”

The lawsuit names a number of specific books that the publishers allege were among the copyrighted works used without permission, including NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, and Lemony Snicket’s Who Could That Be at This Hour?

The case adds to a growing legal battle over generative AI and copyright. Authors and publishers have filed a series of lawsuits against Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, alleging that their copyrighted works were used without permission to train AI models. These include a copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors in which a judge ruled in Meta’s favour last June, and a landmark settlement in which Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5bn to authors who alleged pirated copies of their books were used to train the AI chatbot Claude.

Earlier this year, thousands of authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman published an “empty” book to protest against AI firms using their work without permission.

The new case follows an earlier attempt by Hachette and Cengage to join an existing copyright lawsuit against Google brought by authors and illustrators in 2023. Google has opposed their participation in that case, prompting the publishers to launch a separate action.

The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages, a permanent injunction preventing Google from continuing the alleged infringement, and a court order requiring the company to destroy any unauthorised copies of their works used in training its AI systems.

Google did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.