The Authors Guild filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Google, alleging that its digitization of library books is tantamount to "massive" copyright infringement, reports CNET. "This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law," Nick Taylor, president of The Authors Guild, said in a statement about the lawsuit, which is seeking class action status and asking for damages and injunction to halt further scanning of books.

"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," Taylor said.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Google and its Google Print project, names as co-plaintiffs The Authors Guild and historian, critic and New York Times editorial writer Herbert Mitgang; children's book author Betty Miles; and former U.S. Poet Laureate (1973-74) Daniel Hoffman, reports Reuters.

The Google Print Library Project intends to scan the book collections of major universities and other institutions, make those texts searchable on Google, and sell ads that would appear on the search results pages. The Authors Guild represents more than 8,000 authors and is the largest society of published writers in the U.S.

Previous stories:

- Google Expands Book Search; Faces More Publisher Backlash

- Google Puts Brakes on Book Scanning

- Another Group Asks Google to Stop Digitizing Books

- Google Library Project Prompts Privacy Concerns

- Google Enhances Book Search

- Scholarly Publishers Press Google on Digital Library Copyrights

- Google to Digitize, Offer Up, Great Libraries