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Authors, publishers sue Google over Gemini AI training
15 Jul
Summary
- Lawsuit accuses Google of using copyrighted books for AI training.
- Plaintiffs allege copyright info was altered to hide AI training.
- Early court rulings favored AI companies on fair use defense.
A group of prominent publishers and authors, including Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow, have initiated a class action lawsuit against Google. They accuse the technology company of utilizing their copyrighted literary works to train its artificial intelligence platform, Gemini. The lawsuit further alleges that Google deliberately altered or removed copyright details from these materials.
This legal challenge is part of a broader trend of copyright holders suing AI developers like Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. While some preliminary court decisions in California have supported AI companies' arguments of "fair use" for training purposes, these rulings may not set a definitive precedent.
The plaintiffs highlight a long-standing relationship where they provided Google with works for the Google Books search feature, which offered only snippets. They contend Google unlawfully used full copies of these books, alongside those from the Google Play store, to train Gemini without authorization.
An internal Google document, cited in the lawsuit, suggests that using copyrighted books for AI training could pose significant risks, potentially resulting in fines between $10 billion and $100 billion.
