The group will pilot software called ACAP . . . Automated Content Access Protocol . . . which it said would provide information that would offer specific permissions on how the content may be used.

ACAP could pave the way for an accommodation between publishers and content aggregators not dissimilar to agreements between music companies and aggregators like Apple's iTunes.

Last week's agreement between Warner Music and YouTube, which will share advertising revenue linked to copyrighted material, might provide a better model.

"It's a way to establish a beneficial relationship between search engines and copyright holders, " Gavin O'Reilly, chief operating officer of Independent News & Media, said last week following the release of the group's interim results. O'Reilly is also chairman of the World Association of Newspapers, one of the publishing groups involved in the pilot project.

Google was ordered last week by a Belgian court to remove stories by Frenchlanguage newspapers from its Google News website or face fines of 1m for each day the content remains available via Google. The court held that Google's publishing of headlines and first paragraphs of news stories was a breach of copyright. Google had argued that because users were taken to the original publishing website by clicking on its links that it had not violated copyright.

The company said it would appeal.

On Friday Google lost a separate appeal of a court order to post the ruling on its Belgian website. Google said it would refuse to comply with the order, and faces additional fines of 500,000 per day.

Earlier this year Google reached agreements with the Press Association and Associated Press to allow it to use their content. O'Reilly demurred when asked if IN&M would use the Belgian precedent to launch a separate legal action against Google.

The group described ACAP as "an enabling solution that will ensure that published content will be accessible to all and will encourage publication". More details of the project will be released next months and ACAP will be formally launched by the end of the year.

IN&M announced that underlying profit for the first half of this year was 114m, up 10.8% on the previous year.

Revenue was 797m, up 4% on the same period the previous year. IN&M holds a 29.9% percent stake in the Sunday Tribune.