Google is planning to allow free downloads of out-of-copyright books, according to media reports.

Associated Press said that the search giant will allow visitors to its Book Search site to download free PDF copies of works in the public domain.

Google previously allowed surfers to read only out-of-copyright texts on screen.

Books protected by copyright, however, will not be available for download. In such cases Google will instead offer excerpts and bibliographic information of the title.

Google has run into problems with its project to digitise books in the past. The firm was sued by the US Authors Guild in September last year, accused of widespread copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers.

In June this year French publisher La Martinière Groupe filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that Google Books amounts to "counterfeiting" and "breach of intellectual property rights". The publisher demanded damages of €100,000 for each scanned book.

At the time, Google said in a statement to vnunet.com that it was disappointed that the publisher filed the suit, and vowed to defend itself in court.