Publishers Sue Google, Say Its Own Memo Warned Gemini Piracy Could Cost $10 Billion in Fines

A group of publishers and authors including Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and Scott Turow filed a class action against Google in the Southern District of New York, alleging it trained Gemini on their copyrighted books and scrubbed the copyright information to hide it. The complaint alleges Google leaned on scope-limited programs like Google Books, where publishers handed over works to make them searchable, then copied them for AI knowing it lacked authorization. The plaintiffs cite an internal Google document that allegedly called using copyrighted books for AI training highly problematic and warned of $10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines. Google wrote down the number itself, filed it, and trained on the books anyway, which is the sort of receipt that makes a defense attorney reach for the aspirin. TechCrunch on the Google Gemini lawsuit