Leading US publishers suing Amazon's Audible plaintiff for copyright infringement

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN.O) Audible was sued on Friday by some of the biggest US publishers for copyright infringement, with the aim of blocking the planned launch of a feature called "Audible Legends" that shows the text on screen during the narration of a book .

The lawsuit was filed by seven members of the American Publishers Association (AAP), including HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan Publishers.

"Essentially Audible wants to provide the text as well as the sound of the books without the permission of the copyright holders, although it only has the right to sell audiobooks", said the AAP in a statement.

The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Audible did not immediately respond to a request for comment.