Photographers Sue Google, Alleging "Massive Copyright Infringement"

The long-running class action lawsuit by some authors and publishers against Google's massive book-scanning project has some company.

A coalition led by the American Society of Media Photographers has filed a new class action suit alleging that Google's effort to create a global digital library represents the "most widespread, well-publicized and uncompensated infringement of exclusive rights in images in the history of book and periodical publishing."

The initial filing in the case uses words like "brazen" to describe Google's behavior, and urges the court to put a stop to it.

Thus continues the long legal nightmare the giant search engine has encountered in its effort to realize one of its co-founders' dreams to establish a "library to last forever."

For background on this issue and a long list of related posts, please visit:

What's At Stake in Google Book Case: Access to History
"The issues in the convoluted Google Book case are so complex and involve so many parties — publishers, libraries, states, foreign governments, academics, writers, readers, and the U.S. Justice Department — that federal judge Denny Chin is essentially being asked to decide nothing less than our collective future access to our collective pre-digital literary history..."