Google to talk with authors over copyrights

The recent dispute with Google has highlighted the real battle Chinese authors face in protecting their copyrighted material online. The director from the China Written Works Copyright Society says the association will have a new round of negotiations with Google this week.

October figures from the China Written Works Copyright Society, shows that the Google Digital Library has scanned nearly 18-thousand books from 570 Chinese writers on its web site, without the permission from publishers and authors.

Representatives from both sides had their first contact on November the 2nd. Both sides will have another round of negotiations on Friday. It will focus on several topics including how many Chinese books Google has scanned, how to compensate for the violation and how Chinese writers receive profits from the digital library.

Zhang Hongbo, Deputy director of China Written Works Copyright society, said, "The negotiation focuses on two aspects. The first one is that we require the Google Digital Library to provide detailed information for scanning Chinese copyrighted works. The second one is that we need to understand the works' format provided by Google and their commercial mode."

Previously, Google and the American Writer Association submitted a new pacification agreement to the US court. According to the agreement, the company has offered a compensation settlement of 60 US dollars per book to authors, as well as 63 percent of the revenue from online reading. The agreement doesn't cover Chinese works.

Zhang Ping, director of National Institute for Digital Copyright Research, said, "I personally believe that Google will seek to resolve the problem through pacification. Because he will bear more risks in case they go into lawsuits. Lawsuits are not always a good thing for Chinese writers due to the high costs."

Domestic experts have also warned that the aggressive expansion of Internet giants like Google could deal a fatal blow to the nation's fledgling digital publishing industry, with global markets in danger of being monopolized.