Agence France-Presse and Google Inc have settled a copyright lawsuit, clearing the way for Google to post snippets of the French news agency’s news and photos online, the two companies said on Friday.
The two companies, in a joint statement, said the accord allows the Internet giant to post AFP content on Google News and other services. Terms of the pact have not been disclosed.
Eric Scherer, AFP’s director for strategic planning and partnerships, said the wire service was pleased with the Google deal because “the work of our journalists and photographers will be recognised in a normal way,” he said.
The AFP lawsuit, closely watched in the media industry, was filed in the United States and France. It sought damages of at least $ 17.5 million and interest as well as to bar the use of AFP text and photos without prior permission. AFP agreed to withdraw the action.
Agence France-Presse filed in march 2005 accusing the Web search company of copyright infringement for posting AFP headlines, news summaries and photos, without the news agency’s permission, on its automated Google News site.
Google News allows consumers to search by keywords for news summaries and links to news stories, grouping together related stories based on a computer analysis of the material’s underlying thematic relationships. The service is available internationally in 40 languages or regionalised versions.
The new agreement “will enable the use of AFP’s newswire content in innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users experience newswire content on the Internet,” the companies’ statement said.
“With the other major Internet players like AOL, Yahoo or MSN, we have been licensing our content to them for years and years,” Scherer said. Google would make use of AFP news in novel ways, but he declined to provide details.
Google said in a statement that the deal will “enable the use of AFP’s newswire content in innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users experience newswire content on the Internet.”
“Google’s use was not a fair use, but since all uses (of AFP content) are now covered by the new agreement, it’s a moot point between AFP and Google,” said Joshua Kaufman, a lawyer representing AFP. “We signed a licence agreement that will enable them to use AFP’s newswire content in all Google services as well as in its new products that are coming up.”
The settlement comes eight months after Google struck a licensing deal with AFP-rival Associated Press (AP), in which Google agreed to pay AP for use of its news. Reuters also has a variety of deals to supply news and photos to Google services.
AFP’s lawsuit filed two years ago against Google was followed by a similar challenge to Google News by Copiepresse, which manages copyrights for a variety of Belgian newspapers. In February, a Belgian court ruled that Google must stop reproducing headlines from Belgian newspapers or face fines. At the time, a Copiepresse executive said she would consider allowing Google to display extracts from its papers for a fee.
Under the agreement reached, AFP headlines and photographs will again be available on Google News, Google Actualites, the French-language version of Google News, and other Google services, driving traffic to websites displaying AFP news content, the news agency said.
“The agreement will allow uses of AFP’s content in ways that go beyond its typical use of content in Google’s services, which features just headlines and snippets of text to provide just a taste of what an article offers,” AFP Chairman and Chief Executive Pierre Louette said in the statement.
AFP has existing licensing agreements with Google rivals Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp, MSN, Time Warner Inc’s and other Internet services.
