Google to Expand News Site

Google has signed an agreement with the Associated Press to license the service's news stories and photographs, ending a dispute over the use of AP content on Google. The stories will go on a new site designed to complement Google News.

Like a handful of other news outlets, the AP was not pleased with the way Google News aggregated its content, providing snippets of articles and thumbnails of AP images. The company, which is owned by a consortium of U.S. news organizations, approached Google about licensing.

Agence France Presse, meanwhile, took a more litigious approach, suing Google last year and demanding $17.5 million in damages. AFP asserts that Google never got permission from the wire service to link or display its stories or pictures.

Google has always maintained that linking and displaying thumbnails of images fall under fair use of copyrighted material. The deal with the AP has ostensibly been designed to support that claim, as the content is technically being licensed for a new section of Google News.

The search giant has not specified how AP stories will be used, but it's possible Google is planning a service to rival Yahoo! News, which provides full-length articles from a variety of news sources, including AP and Reuters. Currently, Google only links to the original source on its news site.

"Google News is fully consistent with fair use and always has been," the company said in a statement, adding that, "Google has always believed that content providers and publishers should be fairly compensated for their work so they can continue producing high quality information."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed due to an NDA.