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A US judge has delayed a hearing on a $125 million deal that would allow Google to create a massive digital library.

In a two-page order yesterday, US District Judge Denny Chin postponed the fairness hearing scheduled for October 7th regarding a controversial settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers.

The settlement, which would allow Google to distribute and sell digital versions of out-of-print, copyrighted books, has been criticised by the US Justice Department. The DOJ has urged the parties to modify the settlement, which it said appeared to pose antitrust issues.

On Tuesday, the authors and publishers groups that struck the deal with Google last year asked the court to delay the hearing in order to resolve the DOJ's concerns.

Judge Chin said that while the proposed settlement would offer many benefits to society, it also raises significant issues, as demonstrated by the number of objections to the deal by various parties, including countries, states and nonprofit organisations.

"Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear the the current settlement will be the operative one," wrote Judge Chin.

Instead of the hearing on October 7th, the judge scheduled a "status conference" on that date to determine how to proceed with the case.

Google issued a statement citing the Judge's statement that the settlement would benefit society.

"If approved by the court, this settlement stands to unlock access to millions of books in the US, while giving authors and publishers new ways to distribute their work," said the statement.