Mian Mian and the Google Pirates

Google’s continuing desire to ride roughshod over the intellectual property rights of authors continues unabated for their controversial BookSearch project which brings them hits and publishers no royalties. They continue to scan books currently in print and who’s authors are still trying to make a living deriving royalties from them online. They are still digitizing away without seeking any permissions from authors it seems. Just last month a Parisian court ordered Google to pay over 300,000 euros  in damages and interest and to stop digital reproduction of material derived from a number of French publishers. The company was also ordered to pay 10,000 euros a day in fines until it removed extracts of some French books from its online database. Around the world publishers and authors are worried that Google seems to think that its settlement with publishers and authors in the United States, an agreement that allows the company the right to digitize, catalogue and sell millions of books online that are under copyright protection, applies to all of us!

Well it doesn’t. The arguement of course is that Google is letting users browse the content without paying for it, while they are reaping revenue from advertisers without adequately compensating the creators and original publishers of the works. It’s an issue in China too – and hopefully will become more of one as publishers realise what the American conglomerate is doing.

Mainland author Mian Mian (she of Candy)  has done her bit to make authors and publishers more aware of the Google problem in China. Last October she filed suit against Google in Beijing demanding RMB61,000in damages and a public apology after Google scanned in her lastest book, Acid Lovers. A Beijing judge has asked Mian Mian and Google to hold talks and report back. Google has reportedly removed Mian Mian intellectual property from their database. In China the Written Works Copyright Society has called on Google to negotiate compensation for authors who’s work they are scanning in – they estimate 80,000 works by Chinese writers are part of Google’s database. Settlement talks are apparently to be held in January.

Until then Google is scanning and uploading works by thousands of writers who’s permission, or the permission of their publishers, has never been sought or given.