However, after two years of negotiations, Google and the plaintiffs reached middle ground, hammering out a that calls for Google to pay US$125 million and in exchange gives the search company rights to display meatier chunks of these in-copyright books, not just snippets.

In addition, Google would make it possible for people to buy online access to these books. The agreement would also allow institutions to buy subscriptions to books and make them available to their constituents.

A royalty system would also be set up to compensate authors and publishers for access to their works via the creation of the Book Rights Registry. This would be an independent, nonprofit entity entrusted with distributing payments to copyright holders earned through online access to their works. Revenue will come from institutional subscriptions, book sales and ad-revenue sharing.

The Registry, whose board of directors would be made up of an equal number of author and publisher representatives, would also locate and register copyright owners, who in turn have the option to request to be included in or excluded from the project.

A big portion of Google's $125 million payment would go towards funding the Registry, while the rest would be used to settle existing claims by authors and publishers and to cover legal fees.