Three authors filed suit against Google yesterday, making the claim that the company's program to create searchable digital copies of the contents of several university libraries constituted "massive copyright infringement." The suit has been filed in the United States District Court in Manhattan, and is perhaps the first of many to arise from the Google Print Library program, which seeks to provide a searchable library of all the world's printed books. Google intends to make money from the project by selling advertising on its search pages.
"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," Authors Guild president Nick Taylor said in a statement.