Agence France-Presse settles their lawsuit with Google

Agence France-Presse settles their lawsuit with Google

News agency Agence France-Presse has revealed that they have settled the lawsuit filed against the search engine giant Google.

The AFP said that they have now allowed Google to post news and photos from AFP journalists. The lawsuit in question is the one AFP filed in March 2005 accusing Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

The two companies have not revealed the financial aspects of their settlement. Google would now be able to freely use headlines and photos on Google News and other services that drive online traffic to sites displaying AFP news.

Interestingly, Google had settled a similar lawsuit with The Associated Press last August. Google had at that time said that they would pay AP for news and photos.

Eric Scherer, AFP’s director for strategic planning and partnerships spoke about their deal with Google: “With the other major Internet players like AOL, Yahoo or MSN, we have been licensing our content to them for years and years. And now Google has agreed to do the same thing, so we are very happy.”