Google to talk with Chinese authors over copyright

Google is to talk with Chinese writers and publishers over copyright violations, a move following the search engine's settlement with some Western countries, Global Times reported on Monday.

Google, together with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, submitted a leaner version of the settlement to the US District Court in the Southern District of New York on Friday .

Google is hoping to scan samples of books or complete books to put online.

The revised settlement would apply only to books registered with the U.S. copyright office or published in Canada, the United Kingdom or Australia. Therefore, the copyright issues regarding Chinese books were excluded from the agreement and it must be dealt with separately, according to the Beijing News.

This is a good thing, according to Zhang Hongbo, deputy director-general of the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS). Chinese writers don't have to worry about the agreement reached in the US and they can fight for their own rights, Zhang said.

According to an estimate from CWWCS, Google has included nearly 18,000 books from 570 Chinese writers in its digital library without informing or paying the writers.

The society is set to take potential legal action to protect the Chinese writers, which is the first time Chinese writers have joined Western authors to fight against Google for their rights.

The society has organized an expert group of 10 people including copyright experts, lawyers and technical workers to negotiate with Google, according to Zhang.

Besides the negotiation itself, we hope to promote Chinese writers' works to the world through Google's digital library, Zhang said.

Daniel Clancy, director of global R&D department of Google Inc, said the revised settlement means more opportunities for Chinese writers.

We hope to reach the agreement with Chinese writers to share most of their meaningful books. We'll only provide briefs for the books within the period of copyright protection, and we'll delete them if any writer disagrees with the scanning of their books, Clancy told the Global Times.