A group of publishers and authors have filed a class action lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of using their copyrighted works to train its AI platform, Gemini.
The group of plaintiffs, which includes Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E., also alleges that Google intentionally removed or changed copyright information on these works to “conceal… that its Gemini Models were trained on stolen materials,” according to the lawsuit.
This lawsuit is just one of many complaints that publishers, authors, and other copyright holders have filed against AI companies such as Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
While many of these lawsuits are still pending, two early court decisions in California have favored the AI companies, ruling that the use of copyrighted works for AI training is considered “fair use” under U.S. copyright law that has not been updated since before the existence of the internet.
Anthropic was, however, fined $1.5 billion for pirating the works it trained on, marking the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law. Around half a million writers were eligible for payments of at least $3,000. However, many authors opted out of receiving the settlement so that they could pursue further legal action over AI training.
