Google has been sued for copyright infringement over the book scanning under their Library Program. The class action lawsuit was filed by the Authors Guild, and authors Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles, and Daniel Hoffman.

Google is in the process of scanning books from libraries around the world and putting them online. But is it copyright infringement? Should Google be allowed to scan books and put them online even when the books are not in the public domain, and are subject to copyright protection? Some say yes, others say no.

The Google Book Store or, perhaps more accurately, the Google eBook Store, was officially launched today. The store, stocked with at least 3 million books, allows you to download Google books from the Google eBookstore to your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android phone or device, the Sony Reader, and even the Barnes and Noble Nook, as well as to read Google eBooks with your browser.

It’s no secret that Google is scanning entire books and putting them on the Internet. In fact, we reported their first wholesale scanning project – scanning books from five major libraries – more than four years ago. That lead to outcries and debates over whether Google’s scanning of books was copyright infringement, and sure enough, in what seemed like a New York minute, the Author’s Guild sued Google over that scanning.

First the library brought you the Internet. Now the Internet is bringing you the library. Google has just announced exclusive deals with five libraries, including the New York Public Library, and university libraries at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and Oxford, to scan some or all of their collections and incorporate the results into the Google search engine database.