Leading authors press for Supreme Court review of Google's digitised library

The web giant's digitisation of millions of books - many in copyright - faces a fresh legal challenge, backed by authors including Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, Ursula Le Guin and Malcolm Gladwell

JM Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Malcolm Gladwell and Peter Carey are some of the major writers throwing their weight behind the US Authors Guild's attempt to hold Google to account for its digitisation of millions of in-copyright works.

The case dates back to 2005, when Google first began to digitise books without permission. In 2013, US circuit judge Denny Chin dismissed an authors' lawsuit against Google, saying its scanning of the books, and the "snippets" of text it makes available to users, constituted fair use. "In my view, Google Books provide significant public benefits," wrote Chin at the time. "Indeed, all society benefits."