U.S. publishers sued Google for failing to respect their copyright when the company started digitizing books. They then reached a revenue-sharing settlement covering books that are still copyright-protected, ones whose copyright has expired, as well as the huge number of books that are technicaly still protected but have fallen out of print and where the copyright owner can't be located.

In a letter to 16 European book publishing companies, the search giant proposed giving two of the eight director positions on its proposed U.S. book registry to non-U.S. representatives, a person close to the company said Monday.

Google paid US$125 million to create the registry which will act as middleman between Google and the publishers and ensure that copyright owners are compensated.

The company also promised not to include European works in the digitizing process in the U.S. without consulting their publishers first.

Resistance to the U.S. deal is strong among some politicians, libraries and publishers, particularly in Germany and France.