The Authors Guild, along with a former US poet laureate, is suing Google for copyright infringement. Google operates two programs intended to incorporate print material into its search index, one of which, the Google Print for Libraries program, is targeted by the suit.
Google has been scanning the collections at five libraries, bypassing the authors - who of course hold the copyright on their works - and including selections in search results. "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.