The guild and three co-plaintiffs (authors) have filed a lawsuit in a US District Court, seeking class action status, damages and an injunction against further `infringements`.
Google said it regretted the action, asked for more talks, and claimed its plans benefited writers.
The BBC calls Google`s ongoing agenda a "grand plan", which in the company`s own words entail "organising the world`s information and making it more universally accessible and useful".
Before the suit, it set out to create a digital archive of millions of books from the libraries of Stanford, Michigan and Harvard universities, and of the New York Public Library - by 2015. It is also digitising out-of-copyright books from Oxford University.
The lawsuit caused it to cease its scanning of copyrighted texts until November, to allay concerns about the plan.
The Authors Guild`s own grand plan involves pushing against efforts by Web sites to make the contents of books freely available online.
Google says copyright holders who ask for their books to be withheld from the project will be respected. Apparently, only small portions of the books (said to be descriptions, sections and flyleaf copy) are shown, unless the content owner gives permission to show more.
But critics say that moves the burden of proof in the case of an action from Google to the writers. "(Authors), not Google, have the exclusive rights to... authorise reproduction, distribution and display of their works," the guild`s complaint says.
But Google said its project "directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the programme".
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