The Universities have directly caused millions of works that are protected by copyright to be scanned, stored in digital format, repeatedly copied and made available online for various uses. These actions not only violate the exclusive rights of copyright holders to authorize the reproduction and distribution of their works but, by creating at least two databases connected to the Internet that store millions of digital copies of copyrighted books, the Universities risk the widespread, unauthorized and irreparable dissemination of those works.

Google's library scanning project is the focus of another federal lawsuit in New York, with a hearing scheduled for September 15. In March, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected [JURIST report] the amended class action settlement agreement between Google and groups of authors and publishers who brought a copyright suit [case materials] in 2005 against the Internet giant over its book-scanning initiative [Google Book Search website]. The settlement was reached after over two years of negotiations between Google and the Authors Guild, a group seeking to preserve copyright protection for authors, and other plaintiffs including the Association of American Publishers (AAP), McGraw-Hill, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster.