Authors Sue To Remove Books From Digital Archive

Three major authors’ groups and eight individual authors filed suit against a partnership of research libraries and five universities on Monday, arguing that their initiative to digitize millions of books constituted copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, contends that “by digitizing, archiving, copying and now publishing the copyrighted works without the authorization of those works’ rights holders, the universities are engaging in one of the largest copyright infringements in history.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors and the Québec Union of Writers. Individual authors include Pat Cummings, Roxana Robinson and T. J. Stiles.

“We’ve been greatly concerned about the seven million copyright-protected books that HathiTrust has on its servers for a while,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of Authors Guild, an industry group that says it represents more than 8,500 authors. “Those scans are unauthorized by the authors.” HathiTrust is the name of the partnership of libraries.

The announcement leaves the Authors Guild fighting a two-front war against what it contends is copyright infringement. It filed a lawsuit in 2005 against Google, contending that the company’s project of scanning and archiving digital books violated copyrights. New York Times

Photo: BBC News