Earlier this year I had a chance to spend some time with the head of AFP (Pierre Louette). He seemed to want to make it work with Google (background), and it’s clear he finally has. From Yahoo News:
Agence France-Presse, a global news agency based in Paris, has settled its lawsuit against Google Inc. and will allow the Internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP journalists.
The deal, announced Friday, settles the copyright infringement lawsuit that AFP filed in March 2005 accusing Google of posting news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.
Financial details of the settlement weren’t disclosed.
The deal will allow Google to use headlines and photos on Google News and other services that drive online traffic to sites displaying AFP news. The companies didn’t disclose where else AFP’s news would be used by Google.
The nut here: “Financial details of the settlement weren’t disclosed.” This has significant implications. More to come.