( Ars Technica ) -- With the planned settlement between Google and book publishers still on indefinite hold , a legal battle by proxy has started . Google partnered with many libraries at US universities in order to gain access to the works it wants to digitize . Now , several groups that represent book authors have filed suit against those universities , attempting to block both digital lending and an orphaned works project . The suit is being brought by the Authors ' Guild , its equivalents in Australia , Quebec , and the UK , and a large group of individual authors . Its target : some major US universities , including Michigan , the University of California system , and Cornell . These libraries partnered with Google to get their book digitization efforts off the ground and , in return , Google has provided them with digital copies of the works . These and many other universities have also become involved with the HathiTrust , an organization set up to help them archive and distribute digital works ; the HathiTrust is also named as a defendant . The suit seeks to block two separate efforts . In the first , the universities have created a pooled digital archive of the contents of their libraries , maintained by the Hathitrust . No one contests that these works remain in copyright , or that the universities have rights to the nondigital forms of these works . What the authors object to is the fact that the digital works are derived from an unauthorized scan , and will be stored in a single archive that is no longer under the control of the university from which the scan was derived . The suit suggests that the security of this archive is also suspect , and may allow the mass release of copyrighted work . A separate issue in the suit is an orphaned works project started by the Hathitrust that focuses on some of the works within this archive . The group is attempting to identify out-of-copyright books , and those where the ownership of copyright can not be established . If attempts to locate and contact any copyright holders fail , and the work is no longer commercially available , the Hathitrust will start providing digital copies to students without restrictions . This has not gone over well . The executive director of the Australian Society of Authors , Angelo Loukakis , stated , `` This group of American universities has no authority to decide whether , when or how authors forfeit their copyright protection . These are n't orphaned books , they 're abducted books . '' The authors ' coalition would like to see everything grind to a halt -- Google and the libraries kept from any further scanning , the HathiTrust 's orphaned works project shuttered , and the digital copies on its servers impounded . The digital works would n't be deleted , but it wants to see `` any computer system storing the digital copies powered down and disconnected from any network , pending an appropriate act of Congress . '' ( Note that they want them shut down and unplugged , just to be sure . ) The Authors Guild was actually a party to the Google book settlement , so it 's not like it objects to the effort per se . However , the university libraries had not been a party to it , so this may be the Guild 's attempt to tie up loose ends when it comes to nailing down digital rights . Alternately , they may simply be sending a message that , until the settlement is approved , none of Google 's efforts should be reaching even a limited segment of the public . In either case , this suit could go a long way towards establishing how many digital rights are granted with the ownership of a book . More on Law & Disorder from Ars Technica . COPYRIGHT 2011 ARSTECHNICA.COM .
University Libraries work with Google to get their book preservation efforts off the ground . Authors object to unauthorized acquisition and preservation of works in a single archive . ` ` These are n't orphaned books , they 're abducted books , '' executive director says .