Authors sued Google for copyright infringement

Google, which is considered one of the world's largest technology companies, has encountered a serious legal obstacle in its efforts to develop artificial intelligence technologies. Zamin.uz reported this.

A group of major publishers and renowned authors have filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of illegal use of their copyright-protected works in training the Gemini platform. This claim is expected to elevate the ongoing dispute between rapidly developing artificial intelligence and intellectual property to a new level.

The plaintiffs include major publishing houses such as Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, as well as renowned writer Scott Turow and relevant creative organizations. They accuse Google not only of unlawfully taking the works but also of deliberately deleting or altering copyright-related information to hide the fact that the Gemini models were created based on stolen materials.

What makes this situation unique is that there has been a long history of cooperation between publishers and Google. Over the years, authors have allowed their books to be placed in Google's search system through the Google Books service.

However, according to the agreement, users could only view small portions of books, and there was no opportunity to read the entire work. As the plaintiffs point out, Google used this limited permission to make complete copies of the books for training its artificial intelligence.

Additionally, books uploaded to the Google Play store are also said to have been used to train the Gemini system without authors' permission. According to the lawsuit, Google was well aware that these actions were illegal.

The document cites internal writings from the company, noting that using copyright-protected books could pose a significant problem for Google and potentially result in fines amounting to tens, even hundreds of billions of dollars. Google is not alone in this regard.

In recent times, companies such as Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic have also faced similar accusations. For example, Anthropic was fined nearly half a billion dollars, the largest fine in U.S. history, for using copyrighted materials.

Each of nearly half a million writers was entitled to compensation of at least three thousand dollars, but many authors rejected the settlement in pursuit of greater legal victory. Currently, there is no clear consensus in the U.S. legal system on this matter.

The initial rulings issued by California courts have favored technology companies, stating that using data for artificial intelligence training constitutes fair use. However, the new lawsuit against Google may completely change the legal landscape in this area.

This judicial process will be a crucial factor in determining what data artificial intelligence will be based on in the future.