A group of major book publishers and the author Scott Turow have sued Google, claiming it used millions of copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI without permission. The Google Gemini lawsuit calls it “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history.”
The plaintiffs filed the complaint on 10 July in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs are Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E. They are seeking class-action status.
The publishers say Google copied their books and journal articles to train Gemini, its generative AI system, without permission or payment. The Guardian first reported the claims, which the complaint sets out in full.
What the lawsuit alleges
The suit centres on works Google obtained for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. Those services let Google show searchable snippets or sell ebooks. They did not, the plaintiffs argue, allow Google to copy the works to train commercial AI.
“Google illegally copied works from all these scope-limited programs for AI training, knowing it lacked authorization to do so,” the complaint reads. It also alleges Google used web scrapes from “known pirate sources” and from behind paywalls.
The case brings four counts. Three fall under the Copyright Act. The fourth, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleges Google removed or altered copyright information to hide that Gemini had trained on the works.
The plaintiffs also cite an internal Google document. According to the filing, it warned that training on copyrighted books could be “highly problematic” and expose the company to “$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines.”
The harm the publishers describe
The publishers argue Gemini now competes directly with the works it trained on. They say its outputs range from near-verbatim copies to replacement textbook chapters and knockoff novels.
The complaint gives an example. It says Gemini can produce a 100-page murder mystery in about 20 minutes for 39 cents. “No publisher or author can compete with that,” it states.
The suit names specific titles it says Google used. They include NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and Lemony Snicket’s Who Could That Be at This Hour? The filing also notes that Alphabet reported its first $100 billion revenue quarter in October 2025, which it linked to Google’s AI business.
The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages and a permanent injunction. They also want an order requiring Google to destroy any unauthorised copies used in training. Google did not respond to requests for comment.
A wider legal fight
The case joins a growing set of copyright suits against AI companies. Authors and publishers have also taken OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta to court over training data. That includes a landmark fight with news outlets, and a separate case involving film studios. The same publishers sued Meta earlier this year.
Two rulings in California last year went in the AI companies’ favour on fair use. Both judges said future cases could still go the other way. Anthropic separately agreed to pay $1.5bn to authors over pirated copies, the largest copyright payout in US history.
Some rights holders have chosen licensing deals with AI firms instead of court. Google, which builds the Gemini models, already licenses some content for training but chose unauthorised sources, the plaintiffs allege. A New York judge will now weigh the claims.
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