Google is now offering a way for authors and publishers, who release their work under Creative Commons licenses to distribute it through Google Books, a free service that allow users to search and read books online.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit group that heartens artists, writers and others to use its licensing tools to let their work to be reused and shared by others in sure ways.

Xian Ke, associate product manager for Google Books said that, if rights holders are already part of Google's partner program, they can make their book available under Creative Commons by updating their account settings. Otherwise, they can sign up to be a partner and choose one of seven different Creative Commons licenses.

People will be able to download these books from Google Books and share them freely. If rights holders specify that people can modify their books, readers will be able to do that, too.

Those who download the books will be agreeing that they will only use them in the ways specified by the license. This could include giving the author credit if they remix the work or further public distributions, Ke wrote.

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