A class action lawsuit was filed on Tuesday against Google Inc., charging that the company's Google Print program is a infringement of copyright law.

Working with several major Universities, including Harvard and Stanford, Google is scanning all or part of a large number of books into the Google Print database. Consistent with the company's profile, internet users can then search the database for specific parts of a book's content.

The Authors Guild, an organization representing more than 8,000 U.S. authors, states that Google must first seek the approval of authors to have their works included in the databasebeing created. Though Google allows authors to exclude copyrighted materials from the program, Google is not directly seeking permission from each author to include a specific book. The Authors Guild insists that the failure to seek permission fromthebooks authoris a violation of copyright law.

Google has countered by citing the fair use doctrine under U.S. law. Google states that the database is equivalent to quoting parts of a novel for a book review and that seeking the permission of the author for such use in not necessary. Google has also argued that the Google Print program will actually encourage sales by introducing internet users to literally millions of titles, another critical tenet of the fair use argument.

Filed in a New York federal court, the suit also names three specific authors by name, Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles, and Daniel Hoffman.