Authors Guild sues Google

San Jose Mercury News Tech ticker: Google copyright violations claimed.

An organization of more than 8,000 authors accused Google on Tuesday of ``massive copyright infringement,'' saying the powerful Internet search engine cannot digitally scan the authors' books for commercial use without permission.

``The authors' works are contained in certain public and university libraries and have not been licensed for commercial use,'' The Author's Guild said in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The lawsuit asked the court to block Google from copying the books so the authors would not suffer irreparable harm by being deprived of the right to control reproduction of their works.

Google, based in Mountain View, said in a statement that it respects copyright. ``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 company said.

Google said authors and publishers can exclude books from the program if they don't want their material included.

I'm not a member of the Author's Guild, but if I were, I would tear up my card today.