A group of book publishers has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging the company illegally used millions of copyrighted books to train/build its Gemini AI models. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York by three publishers - Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier - and bestselling American author Scott Turow. According to the complaint, books licensed to Google Books, Play Books, and Scholar were intended for snippets and ebook sales, but Google allegedly copied them to train commercial AI products. The lawsuit states, “Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of 'Don’t be evil' and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history.” The plaintiffs also claim the company reproduced copyrighted works multiple times during the AI training process without authorisation or compensation. The complaint further alleges Google removed copyright management information from copyrighted works "to conceal its training sources and facilitate their unauthorised use." The lawsuit also claims Google internally recognised the legal risks, with discussions acknowledging the possibility of "($10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines)." The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages, a permanent injunction, and a court order requiring Google to destroy unauthorised copies.