Textbook Publishers Sue Google for Its 'Systemic' Advertising on 'Pirate Websites'

Major textbook publishers including Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, Elsevier and McGraw Hill are accusing Google of either direct copyright infringement, or contributory and vicarious infringement, plus violations of New York General Business Law, said their complaint Wednesday (docket 1:24-cv-04274) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

The publishers are suing Google for its “systemic and pervasive advertising of unauthorized, infringing copies” of their textbooks and educational works and for knowingly facilitating and reaping profits from the sale of infringing works through "pirate websites” that the platform promotes, said the complaint. The publishers have reported “infringement after infringement to Google, only to have those reports ignored,” the complaint said. The defendant has continued to advertise infringing works while restricting ads for authentic educational works, “supporting piracy instead of legitimacy,” it said.

The plaintiffs' notices of infringement to Google have identified “hundreds or thousands” of Google ads for infringing works, along with the ads’ URLs, works and pirates’ infringing websites the ads link to, the complaint said. The defendant’s responses have been “a circus of failures,” it said. The company has “failed to remove thousands of ads for infringing works in a timely manner, or at all, and has continued to do business with known pirates,” the complaint alleged.

Google has also threatened to stop reviewing all the publishers’ notices for up to six months “simply because the Publishers appropriately re-submitted notices for infringing works that Google previously failed to act upon,” the complaint said. When the defendant receives the plaintiffs’ notices -- and “thus becomes specifically aware that it is advertising and directing Google users to infringing websites” -- the tech company has an obligation to do something about it, it said. By continuing to advertise and profit from “known infringing activity and continuing to do business with known repeat infringers,” Google is violating the law, it said.

The publishers have tried repeatedly to discuss the issues with Google, which “refuses to take basic steps to resolve them,” the complaint alleged. Despite the plaintiffs’ efforts, Google’s site “remains littered with ads for infringing works,” it said.

Without Google, the pirate websites wouldn’t be known to consumers, who are primarily students looking to buy their works, alleged the complaint. “Consumers find these pirate websites because of Google’s ads, not because they know to go directly to them or even find them through a regular search," it said. With “one click,” consumers can go directly to pirate sites to buy and download infringing copies of the publishers’ works, “instead of purchasing the authentic works,” it said.

By using unauthorized images of the publishers’ textbooks, which often contain registered trademarks, Google “misleads consumers into believing they are getting a legitimate product at a bargain price, when they are in fact buying an illicit product,” alleged the complaint. In addition to its copyright violations, Google’s ad practices violate the Lanham Act, it said.

Google “refuses to allow legitimate sellers” to advertise stand-alone books on its shopping platform, “but allows such ads from pirate sellers,” the complaint alleged. “As a result, the textbook market is upside down, as the world's largest online advertising business advertises ebooks for pirates but rejects ebook ads for legitimate sellers,” it said. Those practices harm consumers, who are directed to "illegal, inferior products," and harm the publishers, “whose sales decrease, while pirates’ sales increase,” it said.

The complaint asserts violations of the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act and New York General Business Law. The plaintiffs request damages, a finding that Google willingly infringed works described, an order enjoining Google from further infringements, and awards of reasonable attorneys’ fees, legal costs and pre- and post-judgment interest.