Google is facing a new class-action lawsuit, filed July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In it, Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow accuse the company of using copyrighted books and journals without permission to build Gemini, the complaint says.
The filing describes Google’s conduct as one of the largest acts of copyright infringement in history. Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and Scott Turow say Google drew on millions of protected books , academic works, and journals for Gemini after first getting access to them through narrower programs such as Google Books and Google Play. Their argument is that Google then took those digital copies and reused them for a commercial system far outside the original scope.
The suit brings claims of direct infringement, contributory infringement, and DMCA violations tied to copyright management information that was allegedly removed or altered, according to the complaint. It asks for statutory damages, a permanent injunction, and the destruction of unauthorized training copies. The filing also argues that Gemini now competes in the same market as the books it was trained on, pointing to the claim that “you can get a 100-page murder mystery in 20 minutes for about 39 cents,” and naming titles including The Fifth Season and Who Could That Be at This Hour?
If you’ve been following the AI copyright cases, this one matters. The complaint cites internal concern about exposure in the tens to hundreds of billions, and it arrives at a moment when California rulings and a recent books settlement have pulled the field in different directions.
You can read the complaint through the federal court filing in New York.
Author: Chema Carvajal Sarabia
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