Five publishing houses - McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education and Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons - filed a suit in New York yesterday, claiming that Google's plans would infringe their copyrights.

"If Google can make ... copies, then anyone can," Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, told Reuters. "Anybody could go into a library and start making digital copies of anything."

Ok, they have a point... this sets a precedent. I still think they're shooting themselves in the foot. It's not always easy to locate interesting and relevant books. A card catalog simply doesn't cut it.

I think this could be really beneficial to smaller publishers and independent authors, but as usual, the big entrenched interests are kicking and screaming. For example, the music, movie, cable, telecom industries. Anything to slow the passage of time.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Further obstacles to Google's library plans