AFP, Google, mend two-year rift
p2pnet.net news:- Since early 2005, links to Agence France-Presse articles have been conspicuously absent from Google indexing.
According to AFP, Google has been using copyrighted stories and pix without paying royalties. The French news agency, the world’s oldest, sued Google for $17.5 million, and Google stopped including AFP.
However, AFP and Google have now settled their argument, signing a licensing agreement giving Google the right to post AFP news and photos, says AFP.
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,” says a statement from the companies.
AFP has pulled its lawsuit, filed in the US and France in March, 2005, and chairman and ceo Pierre Louette says AFP headlines and photographs will again be available on Google news, Google Actualites and other Google services.
“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,” Louette said, but didn’t go into detail on exactly what this means.
Also See:
conspicuously absent – Google, AFP case, goes ahead, July 20, 2006
AFP – AFP, Google sign content deal, April 6, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
April 10th, 2007 at 8:22 am
AFP deserves one thing – bite the dust.
But Google is a company who needs to make profits, so they sign those kind of deals.