Alphabet Shareholder Takes Legal Action against Sundar Pichai and Executives over Alleged AI Copyright Violations

Alphabet shareholder Phil Rosen has filed a lawsuit against Google CEO Sundar Pichai, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and 10 other directors and executives, accusing them of allowing the company to use copyrighted material without permission to develop its artificial intelligence systems.

The 79-page complaint was filed in a federal court in Chicago on October 30. It alleges that Google's AI training strategy relied on copyrighted books, illustrations, digital images, music recordings, musical compositions and lyrics, as well as people's voices, without obtaining the necessary licences or compensating rights holders.

The case specifically highlights Google's AI music-generation models, including Lyria, Lyria 2, Lyria 3, Mulan and MusicLM. It also raises concerns about the use of human voice recordings in products such as Gemini Live.

Lawsuit Accuses Alphabet Leadership of Avoiding Licensing Costs

According to the complaint, Alphabet's leadership pursued a strategy that prioritised developing AI products using copyrighted material rather than securing permission from the relevant owners.

The shareholder alleges that the executives followed an "ask forgiveness not approval" approach, choosing to address copyright disputes after rights holders initiated legal proceedings instead of obtaining licences beforehand.

Besides Pichai, Page and Brin, the defendants include Alphabet Chair John L. Hennessy, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi, President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth M. Porat, and Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker, along with other board members.

The lawsuit has been filed as a shareholder derivative action, meaning Rosen is bringing the case on behalf of Alphabet. Any damages recovered would be paid to the company rather than directly to the shareholder.

Google's AI Music Models Face Copyright Allegations

A major part of the complaint focuses on Google's use of music recordings to train its AI models. It alleges that the company copied millions of copyrighted sound recordings, compositions and lyrics without obtaining permission or providing compensation to artists and copyright holders.

The filing claims that Google extracted audio from recordings, converted it into formats suitable for machine learning and divided the material into smaller clips for training. It further alleges that copyright information identifying artists and their work was removed during the process.

The complaint also points to MusicLM, Google's text-to-music AI system introduced in January 2023. It claims the model was trained using approximately five million audio clips representing around 280,000 hours of music.

The shareholder argues that these practices helped establish the foundation for Google's subsequent AI music products, including the Lyria model series.

Gemini Live Raises Questions Over Voice Data Collection

The legal action also extends beyond music copyright to the collection and use of human voice recordings.

According to the complaint, Alphabet used hundreds of thousands of hours of human speech recordings to develop voice-based AI products, including Gemini Live, without obtaining the consent required under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

The Illinois law requires companies to provide written notice and obtain written consent before collecting certain biometric identifiers, including voiceprints.

The shareholder alleges that Alphabet's handling of voice data violated these requirements and exposed the company to additional legal and financial risks.

Shareholder Questions Alphabet's Corporate Governance

The complaint also accuses Alphabet's board of failing to properly oversee copyright compliance and misleading investors about the company's AI development practices.

It refers to statements in Alphabet's 2024 proxy filing, which described regular board updates on responsible AI development and compliance with the company's AI principles.

According to the lawsuit, similar statements were removed from the company's 2025 and 2026 proxy documents. Rosen alleges that the changes raise questions about what the board knew regarding the legal risks associated with AI training data.

The filing also challenges the company's statements about maintaining an auditable system to track the origins and use of data in its AI models. It argues that these assurances were inconsistent with the alleged use of copyrighted material without proper authorisation.

$169.6 Billion Share Buybacks Also Under Scrutiny

Another significant allegation concerns Alphabet's share repurchase programme. The complaint claims that the company bought back approximately 1.147 billion shares between April 2023 and November 2025, spending around $169.6 billion.

Rosen argues that the purchases took place while executives allegedly knew about potential copyright and biometric privacy violations that had not been disclosed to shareholders.

The lawsuit claims that these undisclosed risks meant Alphabet repurchased its shares at artificially inflated prices.

It seeks financial damages payable to Alphabet, the recovery of certain executive compensation and changes to the company's governance structure. These proposed changes include stronger board-level oversight of copyright compliance and biometric privacy obligations.

Google Has Previously Defended Its AI Training Practices

Google has previously maintained that its AI training practices comply with applicable laws and that its use of publicly available web material can qualify as fair use under US copyright law.

In a policy paper published in June, Alphabet's Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker argued that using publicly accessible web data to train AI models should be considered a transformative, non-expressive activity protected under fair use.

Google has also faced separate legal action from independent musicians who allege that the company used copyrighted recordings from YouTube to train its Lyria models without permission or payment.

In response to that lawsuit, Google argued that creators who uploaded material to YouTube had granted the platform and its affiliates a licence to use the content under its terms of service. The company has also challenged the assumption that it trained its models on the specific recordings identified by the plaintiffs.

The shareholder's latest complaint draws on several existing copyright disputes involving AI developers, including legal actions against Suno, Udio and Anthropic.

Case Could Increase Pressure on AI Industry

The lawsuit adds another dimension to the growing legal debate over the use of copyrighted material in artificial intelligence development. While AI companies argue that training on publicly available information can be legally permissible, artists, publishers and other rights holders continue to challenge the use of their work without explicit consent or compensation.

The outcome of the case could have implications for how technology companies document training datasets, obtain licences and oversee the legal risks associated with AI development.

For Alphabet, the dispute is not limited to the commercial use of copyrighted material. It also raises questions about executive accountability, corporate governance and the accuracy of disclosures made to shareholders.

The allegations have yet to be established in court, and the lawsuit does not specify a particular damages amount. However, the case adds to the legal scrutiny facing Google as it continues expanding its AI products across music generation, image creation and voice-based services.