Hachette, Cengage Sue Google Over Gemini AI Training Data

Publishers allege systematic copyright violation

Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow filed a federal lawsuit Friday in New York accusing Google of copyright infringement in the development of its Gemini AI models. The nearly 60-page complaint alleges Google systematically copied copyrighted books and other materials without authorization to train its artificial intelligence systems.

According to the filing, Google obtained books through its Google Books project under limited-use agreements, then repurposed that content for AI training—a use the plaintiffs argue falls outside the scope of those original arrangements. The complaint further alleges Google "downloaded web scrapes of virtually the entire internet, including from known pirate sources and from behind legitimate paywalls."

Internal documents cited as evidence of awareness

The lawsuit claims Google was fully cognizant of the legal exposure. Internal documents allegedly warned that using books to train AI models was "highly problematic for Google" and could result in up to $100 billion in fines. The complaint states that Google never informed authors or publishers that their works were being used as training material for AI development.

"At no point did Google inform authors and publishers that Google was copying their works as source material to develop and train AI models," the suit states.

Kirk Sigmon, founding partner at KellDann Law who specializes in technology and intellectual property, noted the lawsuit's novel angle: "The idea, in short, is that any fair use argument that Gemini has would arguably be mooted by the fact that they allegedly acquired the books unlawfully."

Why it matters

This lawsuit represents a coordinated effort by major publishers to establish that AI companies cannot simply harvest copyrighted content for model training without compensation or permission. If successful, it could force tech companies to negotiate licensing agreements worth billions and fundamentally reshape how AI models access training data. The case also highlights a critical tension: AI companies argue training constitutes fair use, while content creators contend their work is being exploited at scale without consent or payment.

Part of broader legal battle over AI training

The Google lawsuit follows a February attempt by Hachette and Cengage to join an existing class action originally filed by authors in 2023. It joins a growing wave of copyright litigation against AI companies across multiple content industries.

OpenAI faces ongoing litigation from authors including George R.R. Martin and the Authors Guild. A federal judge denied OpenAI's dismissal motion in October. However, not all such cases have succeeded—a 2025 lawsuit by authors against Meta resulted in a ruling that AI training met fair use requirements.

Beyond publishing, CNN sued Perplexity in May over alleged copying of more than 17,000 stories. Last week, 17 news organizations including The New York Times accused OpenAI of withholding evidence in a 2023 copyright case. In music, lawsuits target Suno and Anthropic over alleged unauthorized use of songs and lyrics.

Oli Huggins, CEO of ExpertEdge and VP of Partnerships at Packt Publishing, described the evidentiary challenge: "Once the egg is baked into the cake, it is extremely difficult to identify it, quantify its contribution or prove precisely which copy of a book was used."

Michael Goodyear, associate professor at New York Law School, noted that courts have yet to resolve fundamental questions about liability when AI systems produce infringing content at user prompting.

Google did not respond to requests for comment. These details were first reported by Al Jazeera.