source: techcrunch ai: google faces another ai training lawsuit from major publishers
level: business
a group of publishers and authors, including hachette, cengage, elsevier, and author scott turow, filed a class action lawsuit against google in the u.s. district court for the southern district of new york. they claim google used their copyrighted works without permission to train its gemini ai platform. the lawsuit also alleges google intentionally removed or altered copyright information to hide the use of stolen materials.
the plaintiffs argue they had limited agreements with google for programs like google books and google play, which allowed only search snippets and bibliographic data, not full-text ai training. they say google illegally copied works from these programs for ai training, knowing it lacked authorization. an internal google document cited in the lawsuit reportedly warned that using copyrighted books for ai training could be highly problematic and lead to fines of tens to hundreds of billions of dollars.
this case adds to many similar lawsuits against ai companies, with early california court decisions favoring fair use for ai training. however, anthropic was fined $1.5 billion for pirating works, the largest u.s. copyright payout. the new york filing gives a different judge a chance to weigh in, and the publishers' long-term, scope-limited relationship with google may influence the outcome.
why it matters: the lawsuit could set a precedent on whether limited licensing agreements restrict ai training, affecting how ai companies access copyrighted data.
source: techcrunch ai: google faces another ai training lawsuit from major publishers