An agreement between Google and publishers over the web firm's publication of books online has been blocked by a U.S court. The web giant has scanned millions of books and made them available online via its eBooks platform. Google had negotiated the deal to settle a six-year-old class action suit claiming infringement of copyright. But the New York court said the deal would simply go too far giving Google an unfair competitive advantage. Under the agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, Google would continue to digitise books and sell access online. In return, the company would pay 125 million dollars in royalties every year to the copyright owners of the books being scanned. The agreement is also separately being investigated by the U.S Department of Justice on competition and copyright grounds. Google has already scanned about 15 million books.