Google has reached an agreement over copyright issues with a group of French-language Belgian newspapers, ending a six-year dispute. Six years ago, Belgium's French-language news publishers and authors sued Google. They argued that Google violated their copyright by displaying snippets in Google News and linking to cached copies of their pages in Google search.

According to trhe agreement, from now on, Google and Belgian French-language publishers will partner on a broad range of business initiative.

Google will advertise its services on the publishers' media, while the publishers will optimise their use of Google?s advertising solutions, in particular AdWords to attract new readers.

Google and the publishers will also collaborate on making money with content, both via premium models (paywalls, subscriptions), and via advertising solutions such as the AdSense platform and the AdExchange marketplace.

The publishers will also implement Google+ social tools, including video Hangouts, on news sites, and launching official YouTube channels.

Google will also increase the accessibility of the publishers' content by collaborating on the distribution of the publishers original content on smartphones and tablets.

Google is also embroiled in similar disputes in other EU countries. Germany has proposed legislation to let publishers charge search engines for displaying newspaper articles. France and Italy are also lobbying for similar measures.