Beijing, China — Search engine giant Google Inc., at the weekend said its communication with Chinese Writers Association (CWA) was “not good enough” after it published sections of their work in its online library Google Books without their consent, hence wish to apologize and is ready to work out a settlement to allay copyright concerns, a writer’s group said Sunday.
The U.S. search giant, for the past five years has been operating on an ambitious project to digitize all the world’s books into an electronic library accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Google states that the program presents an invaluable opportunity for books to get more exposure, but many authors and publishers argue it is a copyright violation.
The issue got heated up and Chinese writers have blamed 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.
Internet giant Google quickly respond to the issue with a public apology to console Chinese writers and admitted in the document which was forwarded to the CWA on Saturday that it had scanned books under Chinese copyright for its Google Books digital library project.
The act had stirred dissatisfaction among Chinese writers, it said.
A copy of the January 9 statement by the Asia-Pacific head of Google Books, Erik Hartmann, was published on the website of the Chinese Writers Association, one of the groups leading accusations against Google, on Sunday.
Hartmann also appeared on Chinese state-run television on Sunday acknowledging the practice of scanning books had angered Chinese writers.
“Through the discussions and communications of recent months, we do believe that our communication with Chinese writers has not been good enough,” Hartmann’s written statement said.
The US search giant confirmed Sunday that “Google is willing to apologize to Chinese authors,” and that the letter was authentic. In a statement, the company said its Google Books project is “fully compliant” with U.S. and Chinese law.
The Chinese Writers’ Association said it received a letter from Google acknowledging its efforts had upset Chinese authors.
According to the China Written Works Copyright Society, a non-government organization representing writers on copyright issues, said tens of thousands of books by hundreds of Chinese authors have been added to Google Books, the US giant’s project to digitize books and post them online, and said it would converge with Google about the copyright issue for the fourth time on Tuesday.
Chinese books were an inbuilt part of its book search service and would like to settle the dispute with Chinese writers through its negotiations with the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS), the search engine said in the document.
“Google’s apology is made mainly because the company values the Chinese market a lot, as well as due to the domestic media’s close attention to the issue,” Zhang Hongbo, deputy director of the society, told China Daily.
“They are prepared to issue an official apology to the society on Tuesday,” he said. “We expressed appreciation for the act.”
Google’s Book Search project, 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 and objections from authors and publishers in the United States, France, Germany and Europe.
Last month, a well-known Chinese fiction writer Mian Mian accused Google of copyright infringement and filed the country’s first civil lawsuit in Beijing, against Google, seeking 61,000 yuan (8,900 dollars) in damages for scanning one of her novels into its library. A Beijing judge told the two sides to hold talks on a settlement and report back, according to the writer’s lawyer.
Google said it had scanned more than 20,000 books under current Chinese copyright protection for its library. Also it has scanned more than 10 million books worldwide since 2004, including 2 million with the consent of about 30,000 publishers.
“In China like everywhere else, if a book is in copyright we do not show more than a few snippets of text without the explicit permission of the rights holder,” Google said in an emailed statement. “In addition, we have a long-standing policy of honoring authors’ wishes, and authors or publishers who wish to exclude their book may do so at any time.”
Google agreed to a reconciliation with US authors and publishers last year over a copyright violation suit filed in 2005, and last month, a French court ordered Google to pay 300,000 euros (430,000 dollars) in compensation for digitizing French books.