Google faces major publisher lawsuit over Gemini's copyright infringement
publishers including hachette and elsevier sued google for using copyrighted books to train gemini without permission. this lawsuit challenges the fair use defense that previously protected ai training in california courts.
a coalition of publishers and authors, including hachette, elsevier, and author scott turow, filed a class action lawsuit against google for allegedly using their copyrighted works to train gemini. the complaint claims google knowingly misused books from its google books and play store programs and removed copyright management information to conceal the training data. unlike previous california rulings that favored ai companies under fair use, this case was filed in new york and cites an internal google document warning of potential liability in the tens of billions. this legal escalation tests the boundaries of fair use for ai training just as google faces a separate lawsuit regarding its 'respectful mode'.