A New York court has rejected a class action settlement hammered out between Google and publishers that would allow the web search leader to scan millions of books and make them them available online.

Under terms of the proposed settlement of a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers, Google would create a registry of books and pay $125 million to people whose copyrighted books have been scanned and to locate the authors of scanned books who have not come forward.

In exchange, Google was to have been allowed to continue digitising books, sell subscriptions to an online database and sell online access to individual books. It would share the revenue of books if the authors could be found.

But Judge Denny Chin said the agreement "would simply go too far" and would give Google a significant competitive advantage.

The Justice Department is also looking into the deal, and has said it might violate antitrust and copyright law.

Google has scanned some 12 million books from some of the country's finest libraries in what it has said was an effort to provide easier access to the world's knowledge.

In its original lawsuit, Google was sued by the Authors Guild and others who accused the search giant of violating copyright laws.

Other critics contended that the massive scanning effort - with no copyright permission - gave Google an unfair competitive advantage and broke antitrust law. The judge agreed on both counts.