China authors seek compensation from Google on copyright issue

As Google redirected its users in China to a website in Hong Kong, influential Chinese authors have demanded settling copyright issues, alleging that the US-based search engine scanned their books without permission.

Some most influential writers said they are still waiting Google to provide a solution to copyright disputes in which the popular Internet company scanned books without the authors' permission, official China Daily reported today.

Chinese Writers' Association (CWA), received a letter from Google in January in which the company apologised to authors for the scanning the books, and promised to give a proposal for an agreement to end the dispute by March this year. A final agreement was expected by June, it said.

"We hope Google will respond as scheduled. Let's wait and see," Yang Chengzhi, a senior official with the CWA, was quoted as saying by the paper.

According to a list by Google at the end of 2009, its online library includes 80,000 Chinese books, 10 per cent of which are authored by 2,600 members of the CWA, it reported.

The authors alleged they were neither informed nor paid money by Google, while the copyright society said the number of scanned books could surpass 200,000.

Lin Lin, a public relations manager entrusted by Google to handle the copyright case, declined to comment.

Yang said the association and Google Books had not been in contact since early January, when the company halted the fourth round of negotiations with China's copyright society. However, she did not specify whether CWA had a back-up plan if Google did not provide a solution to the copyright issue.

Zhang Hongbo, deputy director of the China Written Works Copyright Society, responsible for formal negotiations with Google, told the paper it had tried to contact Google Books but did not receive any response.

"I sent text messages, e-mails and called Google Books' negotiator several times during the Spring Festival, but I haven't received a reply," he said.

Zhang said whether or not Google leaves China, the association would not stop fighting for the rights of writers.

"Google Books has not only got troubles in China. My organisation is in touch with copyright societies in Australia and Europe to exchange ideas," Zhang said.

China’s media points out that Google’s book project recently reached an agreement with the Italian culture ministry to scan one million books in the national libraries of Rome and Florence for the payment of an estimated $135 million. Chinese authors expect the search engine too will shell out heavy compensation before leaving China.