The authors got to know about the infringement this month after some of them discovered that Google had got their works from libraries in the United States.
“Google has seriously violated the copyrights of Chinese authors. That is an undeniable fact,” Chen Qirong, a spokesman for the China Writer’s Association, said.
Google, however, said that it has fully complied with international copyright protection laws and has sent a representative to Beijing to meet with officials of the China Written Works Copyright Society on Monday.
Acting without permission
Google has been implicated in copyright issues for more than four years, digitizing millions of books without permission.
However, Ms. Courtney Hohne, a Google spokeswoman said, “We take the view, backed up by international copyright law, that no copyright is violated in this process since the amount of text displayed is so small and it’s purely for information.”
“In fact, it’s comparable to a quotation from a book in a review or our Web search results, both of which are perfectly legal,” she added.
She also said that it was impossible for Google to know who holds the rights to all the books on the shelves. But, if a copyright holder objects, then Google removes snippets and all the reference books from the search engine.
Zhang Kangkang, vice president of the China Writers Association, said that dozens of her books have been posted on Google Books without her authorization.
“We need to clear up the legal position here,” she said. “Does Google have the right to digitalize our books? ... If this is really an infringement of our rights, they will not be allowed to do this in future.”
The next step
“It is as if you have something nice in your living room and Google takes it and puts it in its living room,” Zhang Hongbo, the deputy director general of Chinese copyright authority said. “We are definitely opposed to using our works without our permission.”
In October, Google offered to pay each U.S. based author at least $60 per book scanned, and 63 percent of future sales revenue. The company also said that it was “actively encouraging authors, publishers, and rights-holders around the world to register for the settlement”.
The authors now have time till Jan. 5 to file a lawsuit or to file claims till June next year.
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