Book Publishers Sue Google Over AI Training
A coalition of major publishers and authors — including Hachette Book Group, Cengage, Elsevier, novelist Scott Turow and S.C.R.I.B.E. — filed a class-action lawsuit against Google on July 14, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleges Google trained its Gemini models on copyrighted books sourced from Google Books and titles uploaded to Google Play without permission, and removed or altered copyright information to conceal that use. Plaintiffs cite internal Google estimates of potential liabilities in the tens to hundreds of billions and say the practice displaces sales and undermines licensing markets. The filing is part of a broader wave of litigation over AI training data and follows publisher tactics such as crawler blocks and threats to delist from search.
- •Class-action lawsuit filed against Google on 2026-07-14 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
- •Plaintiffs include Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, author Scott Turow and S.C.R.I.B.E.
- •Complaint alleges Google trained Gemini on copyrighted books from Google Books and Google Play without permission and removed/altered copyright information to conceal the use.