Review: What's lead up to google negotiations

Google has come under intense fire from Chinese authors and media since October last year. Here's Liu Ying with a summary of events leading up to the fourth round of talks.

In June last year, the China Written Works Society, or CWWS received a letter from an international organization which reminded Chinese authors to protect their interests as Google could use their books without permission. CWWS then launched an examination of Google's digital library. It found that Google had included 18 thousand books written by 570 Chinese authors in its online library.

Zhang Hongbo, deputy director general of China Writing works Copyright Society,said, "Chinese authors did not give permission to Google. This cannot be tolerated."

In October, CWWS announced what it had discovered, sparking questions and criticism.

Li Shude, Legal expert of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "Many Chinese books written by officials, scholars and writers were scanned by Google without getting permission from authors. This is a violation of copyrights."

Google's top executive arrived in Beijing and held talks with CWWS in November. Later CWWS issued a strongly worded notice, requiring Google to hand in a list of books it scanned within a month and draft a plan to compensate Chinese authors.

Yang Chengzhi from China Writers Assocoation, said, "It is clear that Google scanned Chinese books without permission. It must apologize."

In December, Google handed in a list of 80,000 books it had scanned. But the list is regarded by many as incomplete as it only covers books published after 1987. In January, the General Administration of Press and Publication said it supported Chinese authors and wanted to protect their interests.

Yan Xiaohong, vice director-general of General Admin. of Press & Publication, said, "Copyright organizations are making active efforts to protect authors' interests. We support their efforts."

On January 9, Google apologized to Chinese authors and promised it would hand in a new book list at the fourth round of talks to be held on January 12.