NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / – Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier have initiated legal action against Google concerning its Gemini artificial intelligence platform. Author Scott Turow and his organization, S.C.R.I.B.E., have joined the class action suit. The complaint was filed on July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs accuse Google of copying millions of copyrighted books and journal articles without authorization during the development and training of Gemini. As of July 15, the court had yet to rule on the allegations or certify the class.
The lawsuit states that Google acquired material through Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar. Publishing companies and authors provided works for specific functions such as search, sales, and research access. The plaintiffs contend that these arrangements did not permit broader use for commercial AI training. They further allege that Google downloaded extensive web-scraped datasets containing copyrighted works, some of which originated from known pirate sources and services behind paywalls.
The 57-page complaint details four claims under federal law. Three relate to alleged reproduction via Google services, web scraping, and Gemini’s development or training. The fourth invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, alleging Google removed or altered copyright management information from training data. The filing also mentions internal discussions about using publisher-provided books, with one estimate placing potential fines between $10 billion and $100 billion. These allegations have yet to be tested in court.
Class Includes Registered Works
The proposed class encompasses owners of registered U.S. copyrights in qualifying books and journal articles. Eligible books must have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), while eligible articles require a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). The class covers works allegedly copied from Google services or obtained through web scraping, as well as those reproduced during Gemini’s training or development.
Restrictions based on registration timing also determine class membership. One criterion requires registration within five years of publication and prior to Google’s alleged reproduction or distribution. Another mandates registration within three months of publication. The lawsuit excludes government entities, Google affiliates, certain court participants, and individuals who properly opt out of the class. The court must approve the class designation before proceeding with broader claims.
Request for Damages and Court Oversight
The plaintiffs seek statutory damages or actual damages for proven infringements. They also request that Google account for profits attributable to any copyright violations. Their demands include an injunction, legal costs, and a jury trial. The complaint does not specify a total damages amount but urges Google to disclose Gemini training data, methods of data collection, and known model capabilities through a court-ordered accounting.
This accounting would identify copyrighted books and works used in training Gemini and detail how Google collected, copied, processed, and encoded those materials. The plaintiffs also seek court-mandated destruction of unauthorized copies under Google’s control. Earlier, Hachette and Cengage aimed to join separate Google AI litigation in California. The current New York case expands the fight to include Elsevier, Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., focusing on claims related to Google services, web scraping, and Gemini’s training process.