Authors, publishers sue Google over alleged AI copyright infringement | Media News
Hachette Book Group and Others Sue Google Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
NEW YORK — Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow filed a lawsuit against Google in a federal court in New York, accusing the tech giant of copyright infringement related to the training of its Gemini AI models.
The nearly 60-page complaint, submitted on Friday, asserts that Google bypassed existing copyright protections and compensation mechanisms for authors and publishers in developing Gemini.
According to the case, Google initially copied books under limited permissions through its Google Books service. The plaintiffs claim the company also downloaded extensive web content, including material from unauthorized sources and behind paywalls, to train its AI models without permission.
The complaint further states that Google allegedly continued to utilize these works, despite existing agreements that do not encompass such uses. Internal documents cited in the lawsuit reportedly warned that employing books to train AI models presented significant legal risks. It is claimed that such actions could expose Google to as much as $100 billion in potential fines.
“Google never informed authors and publishers that it was using their works as source material for AI development,” the lawsuit alleges.
Kirk Sigmon, a founding partner at KellDann Law specializing in technology and intellectual property law, highlighted complexities in identifying lawful versus unlawful use of copyrighted materials in AI training. “The crux of the issue is that any fair use argument Google might raise could be undermined by the alleged acquisition of the books unlawfully,” he told Al Jazeera.
This suit follows a previous effort by Hachette and Cengage to join an existing class action initiated by a group of authors in 2023. Hachette emphasized in a statement that the lawsuit represents a collective effort among authors and publishers to uphold their intellectual property rights across various literary genres, including fiction and educational material.
Google did not provide a comment in response to inquiries from Al Jazeera.
Legal Landscape for AI Copyright Infringement
This lawsuit is part of a broader trend of legal actions against AI companies by authors and publishers regarding copyright issues. Notably, a pending lawsuit against OpenAI involves several high-profile authors, including George R.R. Martin and the Authors Guild. A federal judge recently rejected OpenAI’s motion to dismiss that case.
Conversely, a group of authors led by Richard Kadrey saw unfavorable outcomes in a lawsuit against Meta, where a federal judge determined that AI training fell under “fair use.”
Michael Goodyear, an associate professor at New York Law School, noted the common legal framework in these cases, which typically centers around the unauthorized use of copyrighted works for AI training. However, proving the specifics of how copyrighted material was utilized in training algorithms remains a challenge, according to experts.
Oli Huggins, CEO of ExpertEdge, pointed out difficulties in determining copyright infringement once data has been incorporated into training models. He stated that current licensing offers for publishers are economically unviable, emphasizing the insufficient compensation for the extensive use of their works.
The surge of lawsuits is not limited to the literary field. Recent actions against AI companies have emerged across various industries, including journalism and music.
CNN has also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, alleging the unauthorized use of over 17,000 stories for training, while 17 news organizations, including The New York Times, have accused OpenAI of withholding evidence in a related copyright infringement case.
In the music industry, Universal Music Group has sued Anthropic for allegedly training its AI model using songs without permission.
As these legal issues unfold, questions about accountability in AI-related copyright cases remain. Goodyear noted the need for clarification over whether liability falls on users driving infringement or the AI systems themselves, a matter that courts have yet to resolve.
