Sony and Google agree to book deal

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 19 (UPI) -- Sony announced a partnership with U.S. Internet giant Google that will open 500,000 classic book titles to free downloads.

The deal announced Wednesday provides Sony Reader Digital Book with titles scanned by the Google Book Search project, Cnet reported Thursday.

The transfer of titles, jumping Sony's library to about 600,000 works, applies to books with expired copyrights, which presumes they were published before 1923. As such, the partnership has greatly expanded Sony's offering of classics such as "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," and "Sense and Sensibility," Cnet said.

The books will be available through Sony's eBook Store.