Google settles French media copyright dispute

Google and French news organisations yesterday settled a three-month copyright dispute over whether the search engine giant should pay to display news content in its search results.

Google agreed to set up a €60-million ($80-million) fund to finance digital publishing innovation, in order to  help French news media to make money from online ads as they transit from print advertising to the internet.

French newspapers agreed to give up on their demands that Google pay them for every click on online versions of their stories - a demand that made Google threaten to stop linking to French media websites.

"After intense negotiations, agreement was reached today," the Elysee Palace, the presidency office, said in a statement posted on its website.

At the height of the disspute, the French government was considering imposing a tax on Google if it continued republishing news content. Google responded by threatening to boycott French media sites entirely if such a law was enacted.

The Elysee Palace tweeted, "France is proud to have reached this agreement with Google, the first of its kind in the world."

Last month Google reached a similar but smaller deal to settle six years of litigation with a group of French-language newspapers in Belgium and is still fighting the same battle in Germany, which is planning to pass a bill making search engines pay publishers, while Italy is considering something on the same lines.

As part of the deal with France, Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt,  said in a blog post that ''Google has agreed to create a €60 million Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers. Second, Google will deepen our partnership with French publishers to help increase their online revenues using our advertising technology.