Google faces lawsuit for book scanning

The Authors Guild on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against search engine Google, alleging that its scanning and digitising of library books constitutes a "massive" copyright infringement.

As part of its Google Print Library Project, the company is working to scan all or parts of the book collections of Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford University and Stanford University. It intends to make those texts searchable on Google and to sell advertisements on the web pages.

Nick Taylor, president of the New York-based Authors Guild, said in a statement about the lawsuit, which is seeking class action status: "This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law. It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied."

Last month, Google said it would temporarily halt its book scanning in the project in response to criticism from publishers and others. It said at the time that it also was making changes to its Google Print Publisher Programme, in which books are scanned at the request of the publisher so people can view excerpts.

The individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which seeks damages and an injunction to stop the digitising, are former New York Times editorial writer Herbert Mitgang, children's author Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman, the 1973-1974 Poet Laureate of the United States.

The Authors Guild represents more than 8,000 authors and is the largest society of published writers in the United States.

Google did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Elinor Mills writes for CNET News.com