Google has reached an agreement with Belgian publishers that ends six years of litigation over the inclusion of the publishers' content on Google News and Google.com.

Google and the publishers have agreed to take advantage of each others' advertising platforms, among other things, Google announced in a blog post. The deal ends their court battle, which began in 2006 when Belgium's French-language publishers sued Google, arguing that the company violated their copyright by displaying bits of articles in Google News and linking to cached copies of their work in Google search.

"We continue to believe that our services respect newspaper copyrights and it is important to note that we are not paying the Belgian publishers or authors to include their content in our services," wrote Thierry Geerts, managing director of Google Belgium. "From now on, Google and Belgian French-language publishers will partner on a broad range of business initiatives."

That includes a commitment from Google to advertise in the Belgian newspapers, while those publishers in turn will use AdWords and other Google platforms in an effort to attract new readers. Google did not reveal terms of the deal, but it is reportedly worth an estimated $6.5 million, according to PaidContent.

Google plans to also implement the use of Google+ video Hangouts and official YouTube channels on news sites to increase engagement, as well as pushing the use of mobile devices to distribute original content.

"This agreement comes at an important moment, in the midst of a debate [about] how best the newspaper industry should adapt to the new digital age," Geerts wrote.

The world is slowly figuring out copyright protection, as governments in Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, the U.K., and Canada are considering, or have already implemented, Internet-friendly copyright reforms, Geerts said. Meanwhile, some European countries like Germany and France are mulling over extending copyright protection to excerpts of newspaper articles that appear in search engine results.

Geerts pointed to research by the European Journalism Centre that outlined why Google and newspapers should cooperate, and admittedly agreed. "Many win-win ways exist for Google and publishers to join forces in the new digital universe," he said.

Google Web access isn't a top priority for everyone, though. Last month, the company fought back against a proposed German law that could force search engines to pay copyright fees every time a newspaper article link appears in Google News. The search titan reached out to its users, asking that they sign an online petition against the bill.