14 DAY TRIAL // Google may be acting tough in the US and other places where it can get away with it, but in China it's as docile as a puppy, or at least that is the impression it gave when it rushed to apologize to Chinese authors for copyright infringement no less. At the heart of the issue is, yet again, Google Books which scanned books from a number of Chinese authors without prior consent. Google is very sorry about the mishap and blames the whole thing on poor communications. Somehow, it fails to mention that the practice is common at Google and it's the same thing it has been doing, just without the heartfelt apologies, all over the world.
Google Books' Asia-Pacific head, Erik Hartmann, issued a public statement in which Google apologizes for scanning copyrighted Chinese books without permission. "Through the discussions and communications of recent months, it is our understanding that our communications with Chinese writers have not been good enough," Hartmann's said in the statement, according to the AFP. "Google is willing to apologise to Chinese authors."
He also appeared on the state-run CCTV network where he also expressed his apologies. "I think Google has somehow displeased the Chinese authors by unawarely triggering their instinct to protect copyrights. We feel sorry," CCTV translated his original quote in Mandarin.
Google has agreed to stop scanning any more Chinese books but didn't make any other promises. The company is in talks with the China Written Works Copyright Society which claims it will seek legal actions if the dispute is not resolved. So far, Google's offers have been rejected.
What's interesting here is Google's response and approach. Google Books aims to make every book in the world searchable and available online. To achieve this, Google has been scanning millions of books, both public domain and copyrighted ones. The company doesn't make the books available online, but just presents small snippets of the text and allows users to search the entire text.
In the past, Google used this argument to defend its actions claiming that it was well within the 'fair use' doctrine of the US copyright law. Unfortunately, the doctrine is not widespread around the world which led to several confrontations with authorities. In fact, it didn't help in the US either as Google preferred to come to an agreement with the publisher and author groups which sued it for the same practice of scanning copyrighted books.
But, Google at least defended its actions in the US and in Europe where it saw even harsher criticism. Last month, the company was forced to pay 300,000 Euros ($430,000) for scanning French works without permission. It can't afford, or doesn't want to risk it, to take such a hard stance in China where Google has been facing quite a bit of resistance from the communist government which doesn't waste too many opportunities to go after the company.