Chinese Novelist Sues Google for Copyright Infringement
The Financial Timesreports
that Google is being sued by a Chinese author whose book was scanned by the search giant as part of its global digitization process. The novelist has sued Google in a Chinese court on the grounds of copyright infringement.
Mian Mian, a 39-year-old author from Shanghai whose realistic descriptions of life with drugs and among prostitutes, gangsters and failed artists, has attracted a large following of young readers, is suing Google for alleged copyright infringement. Sun Jingwei, her lawyer, told the Financial Times that the Haidian People's Court in Beijing would start hearings on December 29.
The case, the first brought against Google by a Chinese writer, underlines the risks that remain to Google's plan to build a digital library which could lay the groundwork for an "iTunes of books" and potentially transform the publishing industry.
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Mian Mian filed her complaint on October 23. The author demands that Google apologises for scanning part of her works, deletes the scanned content from its digital library and pays her Rmb60,000 ($8,800) in compensation, Mr Sun said.
He added that the plaintiff had collected evidence of scans of Mian Mian's novels that could be found online although a complete scan of one of her books had been removed in mid-November.
She's suing Google for $8,800? Surely there were some zeros missing from that number? One would think the attorneys' fees alone would cost more than that. Unless, of course, someone in the government is behind the suit and she's a straw man (or woman). Google says it has deleted her novel from its database and is hopeful of winning the case. We can't imagine how much money Google is spending to defend a copyright case in China over one book, but we're sure it's costing the company a lot more than $8,800.
Google said it had taken the author's book offline and that it was "confident of a favourable outcome in this case". A third round of talks between the company and copyright associations is expected, it said.
"Google Books is fully compliant with US and Chinese law," it said in a statement. "In China like everywhere else, if a book is in copyright we don't show more than a few snippets of text without the permission of the rights holder."
