• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 12, 2015

Money put into a fund by Google for French publishers will fund an edition of Charlie Hebdo that will come out on Wednesday with a print run of 1 million -- up from the typical 60,000. The money comes from a fund started by Google after pressure from the French government to pay a link tax for running excerpts and linking to articles from French newspapers in search results.

Google did not specifically start the fund to run the forthcoming newspaper editions -- the fund was started last year, based on a disagreement with the French government over intentions to compensate French publishers for linking to and serving up newspaper articles in its search engine query results.

"The cash will come from €60m fund (€20m per year over three years) that supports digital publishing innovation," reports The Register. "The fund was set up in 2013 following negotiations between Google and the French government as a remedy to demands from European publishers that Google pay for displaying news snippets in its search results."

In February 2013, Eric Schmidt, Google chairman, announced a 60m euro fund for "innovation" in French journalism and French publishers using Google's advertising tools. The joint announcement with French President Francois Hollande was intended to increase investments in French culture.

One newspaper cover run by The Register shows a Muslim squatting with his hands over his eyes apparently crying, saying "It's hard to be loved by idiots," per a Google translator tool.

Four of France's most famous cartoonists -- Stéphane Charbonnier, Jean Cabut, Georges Wolinski, and Bernard Verlhac -- were personally targeted and killed in the attack.