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The settlement will see Google pay £80 million to create a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers can register works and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions or book sales.

The settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers draws to a close a three-year legal challenge of Google's plan to

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make many of the world's great books searchable online.

The lawsuit filed by publishers charged that Google's attempts to scan works without permission infringed on copyright protections. The settlement is subject to federal court approval.

"It's been a long and arduous negotiation," says Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, who argues the settlement will mean a "vast repository of books, millions upon millions of out-of-print books and many in-print books, will find a new home and new readers online."

Initially, Google's Print Library Project called for searches to bring up three or four-line snippets from books, but plans now call for as much as a full page to appear in response to queries.

In addition, libraries across the country will be offered an online portal, allowing their patrons to print pages for a fee. Institutional subscriptions will also be available to college students and faculty.