The Google Print Library Project sounded like such a brilliant idea when it was first launched in 2004 : The search giant said it had partnered with a group of prominent universities and would scan millions of out-of-print and hard-to-get books — in effect, creating a vast digital library of more than 15 million volumes that would be available to anyone. Then reality hit, in the form of a lawsuit by publishers and authors , saying the company didn’t have the right to scan their books. A settlement agreement, which took years to hammer out, was thrown out by the courts last year, and now the Author’s Guild is suing the universities that originally partnered with Google for copyright infringement.

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Another nail in the coffin of Google’s global library