The FINANCIAL — Chinese Writers Association has confirmed that it had received an apology from Google in the form of a written document, Xinhua News Agency reports. Google admitted in the document that it had scanned books under Chinese copyright for its online library. It promised not to scan the books without authorization from Chinese writers.
Chinese writers accused Google of copyright infringement last October when the search engine used sections of their work online, and without their permission. They asked Google to apologize and have also demanded compensation, according to China Daily. Google's Book Search, for which the world's largest Internet search engine scans hundreds of thousands of books and places part of their content online, has also been met with legal challenges in the US and Europe.
Erik Hartmann, Asia-Pacific manager of Google Books, said in a CCTV report broadcast yesterday that the company was sorry for any unhappiness, the same source reports. "Google has made Chinese writers feel dissatisfied in terms of their copyright protection. We are apologetic for the unhappiness brought about by this issue," Hartmann said. "Through the discussions and communications of recent months, it is our understanding that our communications with Chinese writers have not been good enough," AFP quoted Hartmann's written statement as saying. "Google is willing to apologise to Chinese authors."
The U.S. Internet operator will “respect the wishes of any Chinese author who hasn’t authorized their books to be scanned,” Google said in a Jan. 9 letter to the China Writers Association and posted on the group’s Web site, according to Business Week.
Google should submit proposals to compensate Chinese authors whose works it included without approval and immediately stop the practice, the association said in November, the same source reports. The operator of the world’s biggest Internet search engine has boosted Chinese content, including to its Google Books digital library, as it seeks to catch Baidu in a market with more Internet users than the U.S. population.
Some Chinese writers welcomed Google's move and called for more attention to be paid to copyright infringement issues, according to CRIENGLISH.com. Bai Ye, a well known literary commentator in China, says those who publish works by others on the internet should respect the works' copyrights.
"The phenomenon of copyright infringement on the internet is very serious. We don't care how much compensation will be paid. We want to show our willingness together with other writers," said Bai, the same source reports. "Although Google is a powerful internet company, we should not ignore our rights and put the case under law. We hope Google will respect copyrights and Chinese law."
Yang Chengzhi, an official with CWA, said on Sunday that the association hoped the apology was sincere and the promise would be honored, according to Xinhua. She said the CWA would not have direct talks with Google but would wait till satisfactory results come out.
In Oct. 2008, the China Written Works Copyright Society officials revealed about 18,000 titles of books from 570 Chinese writers had been scanned by Google, with authors neither informed nor paid, the same source reports. According to a list provided by Google at the end of 2009, its on-line library involves some 80,000 categories of Chinese books, ten percent of which were works of 2,600 members of the CWA.
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