AFP French News Wire Sues Google

Agence France Presse announced Friday that it was suing Google in order to stop it from using AFP material on its Google News site, and is asking for damages of $17.5 million. AFP maintains that Google never got permission from the wire service to link or display its stories or pictures.

"Without AFP's authorization, defendant is continuously and willfully reproducing and publicly displaying AFP's photographs, headlines and story leads on its Google News Web pages," the lawsuit read.

The wire service may have a hard time proving that Google is breaking copyright laws by linking into thumbnails of AFP's images, and linking to the wire service's stories.

In previous cases, the court has ruled that linking and displaying thumbnails of images fall under fair use of copyrighted material. Agence France Presse said it had informed Google that it did not have the permission of the wire service to use its work and had asked it to stop.

According to AFP, Google has ignored its demands, forcing the service to file the lawsuit in court.