CRI听力: Chinese Organization Fight against Google's Infringement

The China Written Words Copyright Society, or CWWCS, recently discovered nearly 18,000 works by more than 570 Chinese authors in Google's online library.

Zhang Hongbo, the organization's Secretary-general, says the powerful Internet search engine cannot put these books in the public domain for commercial use without authorization.

"The authors of these books include some state leaders, high officials and some renowned writers. We've done some research and found that there is no evidence showing that they've given authority to Google to publish the books online."(www.hXen.com)

This also means that these authors are still being kept in the dark without knowing that their books are being scanned by Google and uploaded onto the internet.

In 2005, the American Writers' Association together with Association of American Publishers sued Google for digitalizing books without authorization.

Google recently announced that it would build the world's largest online library so users around the world could access the content of books for free. But this large project has faced a variety of frequent protests and litigation.

Zhang Hongbon is protesting against Google on behalf of the Chinese authors whose works it has published online.

"Any enterprises in the world need to be authorized first and then pay for the works they are trying to use before publishing any works protected by the copyright law. We can see from this case that Google is completely neglecting the law. We can't understand it."

Some legal professionals say once complete evidence is collected and Google is proved to have used the books' content without authorization, it will face charges.

Li Shunde, Deputy Director of the Intellectual Property Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explains.

"Without permission, Google has scanned and uploaded many books from all over the world. Now it has touched books by Chinese political leaders and scholars. Its behavior is a kind of infringement without authorization."

In the meantime, the CWWCS has contacted Google headquarters to fight for Chinese authors' rights. But the communication has not gone smoothly.

Zhang Hongbo complains he has not yet received a formal response from Google.

"We think as a big enterprise in the world, Google's attitude is very arrogant. As Chinese copyright owners and their organizations, we won't endure this at all."

Now the CWWCS says it will also sue Google if the American company further neglects the organization's communication efforts.

The CWWCS is also seeking legal help from intellectual property law experts to safeguard the rights and interests of Chinese authors.

For China Drive, I'm Liu Min.