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Publishers Sue Google Over Ads for Pirated Ebooks

Publishers Sue Google Over Ads for Pirated Ebooks

June 2024

Information Industry News

From Reuters, June 5, 2024

Google was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday by educational publishers Cengage, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill and Elsevier accusing the tech giant of promoting pirate copies of their textbooks.

The publishers told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that Google has ignored thousands of copyright-infringement notices and continues to profit from the sale of pirated digital versions of textbooks advertised through its dominant search engine.

Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. The publishers' attorney Matt Oppenheim of Oppenheim + Zebrak told Reuters that Google had become a "thieves' den" for textbook pirates.

The complaint said that Google searches for the publishers' work feature heavily discounted, pirated e-book versions at the top of the results.

The case is Cengage Learning Inc v. Google LLC, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:24-cv-04274.

Additional details available on the Reuters website