Google is facing a proposed class action lawsuit after a group of publishers and author Scott Turow accused the company of using copyrighted books without permission to train its Gemini artificial intelligence models.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York by Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Turow and his publishing company S.C.R.I.B.E., seeks class action certification, financial damages and a court order preventing Google from continuing the alleged practice.
The plaintiffs allege Google relied on millions of copyrighted books, originally provided for limited uses through services such as Google Books, to develop its AI models. They argue Gemini can now generate content that competes with authors' original works while also reproducing distinctive writing styles.
The case is the latest in a series of legal challenges testing how AI companies obtain and use copyrighted material. Earlier this year, the same publishers and Turow filed a similar lawsuit against Meta over its AI training practices.
The dispute also follows recent court decisions involving other AI developers. Anthropic reached a $1.5 billion settlement with authors over claims related to its Claude AI model, while Meta secured a partial legal victory after a US court ruled that aspects of its AI training qualified as fair use under copyright law.