In a class-action lawsuit filed against Google on Wednesday in the US District for the Southern District of New York, a number of trade associations, representing illustrators and photographers, have accused the Internet search giant of unauthorized scanning millions of books and magazines and including them in the Google Books project.

The copyright infringement lawsuit against Google has been jointly filed by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP); the Graphic Artists Guild; the Picture Archive Council of America; the Professional Photographers of America; the North American Nature Photography Association; and several individual photographers and illustrators.

According to the information forwarded by ASMP General Counsel Victor Perlman, the associations have essentially file the lawsuit to seek “justice and fair compensation for visual artists whose work appears in the twelve million books and other publications Google has illegally scanned to date.”

As per an ASMP statement, the lawsuit has been filed with the objective of protecting the owners of visual works copyrights from copying of their works on a “massive and organized” scale, as well as public display of their images, giving no consideration to their contributions as well as their rights to fair rewards.

ASMP further stated that though the associations wanted to join the $125 million class-action lawsuit that has already been filed against Google on behalf of text authors; they had to file a separate case because the court turned down their request.