Publishers seek to join lawsuit against Google over AI training
Jan 15 (Reuters) – Publishers Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group asked a California federal court on Thursday for permission to intervene in a proposed class-action lawsuit against Google over alleged misuse of copyrighted materials used to train artificial intelligence systems. In their proposed complaint, the publishers said the tech company “engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history” to enhance its AI capabilities by copying unauthorized content from Hachette books and Cengage textbooks.
Google spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the publishers’ offer; This may increase the potential damages at issue in the case.
“We believe our participation will bolster the case, especially because broadcasters are uniquely positioned to answer the many legal, factual and evidentiary questions before the Court,” Maria Pallante, CEO of the Association of American Publishers, the publishers’ trade group, said in a statement. he said. The case currently involves a group of visual artists who are suing Google for allegedly misusing their work to train an AI-powered image generator. The case is one of many filed by artists, writers, music labels and other copyright owners against tech companies over their AI training. Anthropic settled a $1.5 billion lawsuit last year when a group of writers sued for using their work to train the AI chatbot Claude.
Publishers on Thursday cited 10 examples of textbooks and other books that Google allegedly misappropriated from authors including Scott Turow and NK Jemisin to train its Gemini large language model. They asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages on behalf of themselves and a broader class of writers and publishers.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee will decide whether to approve the publishers’ request to join the case. (Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, Editing by Rod Nickel)
