Publishers move to join a proposed class action against Google over AI training — and why that procedural step matters more than it sounds. Background On 15 January 2026, publishers Hachette Book Group and Cengage Learning filed a motion to intervene in an existing, author-led proposed class action against Google in the Northern District of California, arising out of allegations that Google misused copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI models. The publishers' filing specif