Lawsuit Seeks the Removal of a Digital Book Collection

Art Knowledge News -  09 Dec 2011 

New York, NY - 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.” In addition to copyright infringement, the suit also cites concerns about the security of the files in the HathiTrust repository, which is organized and maintained by the University of Michigan. Scott Turow, the president of the Authors Guild, said the books on file were at “needless, intolerable digital risk.”

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.

In March, a federal judge in New York rejected a settlement that Google had worked out with authors’ and publishers’ groups. A new hearing on that case will be held on Thursday.

The plaintiffs are not seeking damages in the lawsuit; instead, they are asking that the books be taken off the HathiTrust servers and held by a trustee.