Google's plan to publish books online blocked by US court

A court in the US has blocked an agreement between Google and publishers that would have allowed the Internet search engine to publish books online.

Google has scanned millions of books and made them available online via its eBooks platform, and it had negotiated the deal to settle a six-year-old class action suit claiming infringement of copyright.

But the New York court said the deal would "simply go too far", giving Google an unfair competitive advantage.

Under the agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, Google would continue to digitise books and sell access online.

In return, the company would pay $125 million in royalties every year to the copyright owners of the books being scanned.

However, copyright concerns persisted, as the ownership of many of the works being scanned by Google could not be established, meaning many would be unable to claim the royalty payment.

"The amended settlement agreement would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case," the BBC quoted judge Denny Chin as saying.

The agreement is also separately being investigated by the US Department of Justice on competition and copyright grounds.

"This is clearly disappointing, but we'll review the Court's decision and consider our options," Google's managing counsel, Hilary Ware, said.

"Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today. Regardless of the outcome, we'll continue to work to make more of the world's books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks," she added.