“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno has seen the legal battle with the creators of a series of joke books he sued for allegedly ripping off material from his own show come to a satisfying end.

Jay Leno was among the plaintiffs in a copyright suit filed against author Judy Brown and her publishers for allegedly stealing material from his show and stand-up routines to make numerous joke books such as “Jokes to Go,” “Comedy Thesaurus” and “The Funny Pages.”

Leno’s lawyers said Wednesday that a legal deal had been reached, according to which the publishers have agreed to stop printing and distributing the books immediately and to pay monetary compensation. Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Brown apologized to the entertainers whose jokes she admitted she used without asking for permission before. The copyright suit was filed in the U. S. District Court in Los Angeles in November 2006 on behalf of Leno and several stand-up comics including Rita Rudner, Jimmy Brogan and Bob Ettinger, as well as by NBC Studios, which produces “The Tonight Show.”

“In my books, I have published jokes of Jay Leno and the other comedians in this lawsuit without their permission,” Brown said in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for doing so. I greatly admire the creativity, wit and energy of stand-up comedians, and I recognize that comedy is as much an art form as other types of creative expression.”

NBC backed the famous funnyman against Andrews McMeel Publishing, Sterling Publishing and Rowman & Littlefield, because jokes told by Leno on “The Tonight Show” are the property of the studio as well.

“On behalf of the tremendous and talented group of writers we have at ‘The Tonight Show’ and many other hard-working comedians, I'm very glad we've been able to stop this practice once and for all,” Leno said in a statement acknowledging his writing team’s contribution to the material.

Leno also said he would donate all his proceeds to charity.