Google is facing a fresh legal challenge from a consortium of major publishers and authors, who accuse the tech giant of illegally utilising their copyrighted materials to train its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Gemini. The class-action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, includes prominent names such as Hachette, Cengage, and Elsevier, alongside author Scott Turow and S.C.R.I.B.E.
The plaintiffs allege that Google not only used their works without permission but also deliberately altered or removed copyright information from these materials. This, they claim, was an attempt to "conceal… that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials," as detailed in the lawsuit. This action marks another significant front in the escalating legal battle between content creators and AI developers over the use of intellectual property.
Crucially, the lawsuit highlights a pre-existing relationship between Google and the publishers. For years, publishers and authors have provided Google with copyrighted works for its Google Books service, which allows users to search books and view short snippets, not entire texts. The plaintiffs assert that Google then leveraged copies of these books, and those uploaded to its Google Play store, to train Gemini without the necessary authorisation for AI development. "Google illegally copied works from all these scope-limited programs for AI training, knowing it lacked authorization to do so," the lawsuit states.
This particular case stands out amidst a wave of similar complaints filed against major AI companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. While two early court decisions in California have favoured AI companies, deeming the use of copyrighted works for AI training as 'fair use' under current U.S. copyright law, these rulings do not set an inarguable precedent. The Anthropic case, however, saw the company fined a substantial $1.5 billion for pirating works, with half a million writers eligible for payments, though many opted out to pursue further legal action.
The publishers' filing also cites an internal Google document that allegedly raised concerns about the practice, warning that using copyrighted books for AI training could be "highly problematic for Google" and potentially lead to "£10Bs-£100Bs in potential fines." Google has yet to issue a public comment on the matter.