Publishing houses Hachette Book Group and Cengage Group have petitioned a California federal court for permission to join a proposed class action lawsuit against Google. They allege that Google engaged in widespread infringement of copyrighted materials, specifically from their books and textbooks, to train its artificial intelligence systems without authorization. The publishers claim this constitutes "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history" in the development of Google's AI capabilities. This move could significantly increase the potential damages in the ongoing case, which already includes visual artists and authors suing Google for similar alleged misuse of their work to train generative AI systems. The Association of American Publishers' CEO, Maria Pallante, emphasized that publishers are uniquely positioned to address the legal, factual, and evidentiary questions involved.