Hachette and Cengage seek role in class suit over Google AI training

Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group filed papers on Jan. 15 in federal court in Northern California asking to intervene in a proposed class action that accuses Google of using copyrighted books and textbooks without permission to train its artificial intelligence systems, including the Gemini large language model. The publishers say their participation is necessary to protect the rights of publishers and to press distinct legal claims that individual authors and artists do not represent.

In a proposed complaint attached to the motion, Hachette and Cengage alleged that Google “engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history” in building its AI capabilities. The firms cited 10 specific examples of textbooks and other books they say were copied and used to train Gemini, and named works by authors including Scott Turow and N.K. Jemisin. The publishers are seeking an unspecified sum in monetary damages on behalf of themselves and a broader class of authors and publishers.

The motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where a lawsuit first brought in 2023 by authors, illustrators and visual artists remains pending. Those individual plaintiffs have sought class certification that would encompass publishers in some circumstances; Hachette and Cengage contend publishers are not adequately represented by the individual plaintiffs and that Google has objected to prior efforts to resolve class definition questions. The publishers say their intervention is necessary to address distinct legal, factual and evidentiary issues that will shape the litigation.

U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee will decide whether to permit the publishers to join as intervenors. If the court allows intervention, publishers could press their own theories of liability and damages and push for a class definition that more explicitly includes publishers as rightsholders. That shift could inflate potential exposure for Google, expand discovery into the provenance and use of copyrighted works in AI training datasets, and introduce new evidentiary disputes about which works were used and how.

Court filings and public records show a number of plaintiff-side law firms are active in the litigation, including Bleichmar Fonti, Clarkson Law Firm PC, Edelson PC, Joseph Saveri Law Firm, Kwun Bhansali, Lockridge Grindal, Oppenheim & Zebrak and Wilson Sonsini. The Association of American Publishers has voiced support for the publishers' bid; Maria Pallante, the association’s chief executive, said, “We believe our participation will bolster the case, especially because publishers are uniquely positioned to address many of the legal, factual, and evidentiary questions before the Court.”

Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case joins a growing wave of litigation from authors, artists and labels challenging technology companies over the use of copyrighted material in AI training. As context, a separate group of authors reached a $1.5 billion settlement last year with Anthropic over similar claims.

The court will now review the publishers’ motion and proposed complaint. A ruling on intervention could come in the weeks or months ahead and is likely to shape the scope of discovery, class definition, and how damages might be calculated if the lawsuits proceed to trial or settlement.