"The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, is the first to arise from the Google Print Library program, the fledgling effort aimed at a searchable library of all the world's printed books," reports The New York Times.
"The plaintiffs, who are seeking class-action status, also include the Authors Guild, a trade group that says it represents more than 8,000 published authors."
Google has issued a statement that says, among other things:
"We regret that this group has chosen litigation to try to stop a program that will make books and the information within them more discoverable to the world," the statement said. "Google Print directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the program. And, if they choose, authors and publishers can exclude books from the program if they don't want their material included. Copyrighted books are indexed to create an electronic card catalog and only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more."
