Several photography groups on Wednesday filed a class-action lawsuit against Google, accusing the search engine giant of illegally scanning books that include copyrighted images for its Google Books project.

Several photography groups on Wednesday filed a class-action lawsuit against Google, accusing the search engine giant of illegally scanning books that include copyrighted images for its Google Books project.

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), joined by four other groups, four photographers, and two illustrators, filed their suit after a judge denied their request to join a $125 million class-action settlement announced in 2008.

"Through this suit, we are fulfilling the missions of our organizations and standing up for the rights of photographers and other visual artists who have been excluded from the process up to now," Eugene Mopsik, ASMP executive director, said in a statement. "We strongly believe that our members and those of other organizations, whose livelihoods are significantly and negatively impacted, deserve to have representation in this landmark issue."

Victor Perlman, ASMP's general counsel, said the parties are "seeking justice and fair compensation for visual artists whose work appears in 12 million books and other publications Google has illegally scanned to date."

"In doing so, we are giving voice to thousands of disenfranchised creators of visual artworks whose rights we hope to enforce through this class action," Perlman said.

Google denied any wrongdoing and said it is "confident that Google Books is fully compliant with international copyright law."

"Google Books is an historic effort to make all of the knowledge contained within the world's books searchable online," a spokesperson said in an e-mail. "It exposes readers to information they might not otherwise see, and it provides authors and publishers with a new way to be found."

Other parties to the lawsuit include the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photography Association, Professional Photographers of America, photographers Leif Skoogfors, Al Satterwhite, Morton Beebe, Ed Kashi, and illustrators John Schmelzer and Simms Taback.

The issue dates back to 2004, when Google partnered with major university libraries to scan their collections and make them available on the Internet. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Author's Guild sued Google for copyright infringement in 2005. In October 2008, the two sides that would create a registry of online books, and allow U.S. consumers and institutions to purchase access to that material.

The settlement has faced opposition, however. In September 2009, the Department of Justice Google's book deal, so Google and content groups in November. While the DOJ said the new deal included several improvements, the agency that it still had problems with class certification, copyright and antitrust issues.