Three authors filed suit against Google yesterday contending that the company's program to create searchable digital copies of the contents of several university libraries constituted "massive copyright infringement," reports New York Times

Last December, Google struck a deal with libraries at three American universities - Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan, as well as Oxford University and the New York Public Library for Google to make copies of all of the works in those institutions that are no longer protected by copyright .

The Google Print site, works by typing the name of an author, a book title or a word or phrase into a Web search box at http://print.google.com/..

The plaintiffs, who are seeking class-action status, also include the Authors Guild, a trade group that says it represents more than 8,000 published authors.

The Author's Guild said its primary purpose as the nation's largest organisation of book authors was to advocate for and support the copyright and contractual interests of published writers.

"By reproducing for itself a copy of those works that are not in the public domain, Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement. It has infringed, and continues to infringe, the electronic rights of the copyright holders of those works," it said.

The lawsuit said Google knew or should have known that copyright laws required it to obtain authorisation from copyright owners of literary works to create and reproduce digital copies for its own commercial use.