The future of Google Books and its copyright issue

From Telegraph UK


As a loyal user of Google products, Google books and scholar are among my top list of Google products. However, in the eyes of the authors and other digital cooperation, the practice of Google Book obviously is not on their fave list. This popular online digital library has been interfering with the interests of authors (copyright issue). For now, I just wish that after everything settles, I can still use the online resources from Google Books, maybe not as convenient as now.

It all started with the objections from US authors and a lawsuit regarding the copyright infringement in 2005. The proposal now handed to court in America actually concerns authors worldwide. It was quite ironic to see the anger and objection from Chinese authors in October ( FT article ), since China is accused for copyright violations. Nevertheless, though China is separate from this week’s agreement in New York, a few Chinese media still presented the news. People’s Daily Online, most political and state-own newspaper in China, implied an image that Google was “bad guy” in the crime theme and authors, especially Chinese authors, became the victims. A major part and main figures in the news revolved around the severity of copyright infringement in China. It seemed that all Alegre, the vice president of Google Asia tried to do was to find excuse and ways to compensate. There is no analysis in the article while it generally remained negative towards Google’s behaviour.

However, in Global Times, relatively more democratic paper in China, we can see some positive opinions. The use of terms in headline, “confer on copyright”, indicated the neutrality of the article. Indeed, the news provided us with some advantages of Google books. The interesting part is, although from the same interviewee as the people’s daily one, what the representative from CWWCS said quoted in this piece of news mainly referred to the benefit to Chinese authors. Same figures are included as well. Besides, no doubt that the journalist did some research for the article, information from Forbes was cited to provide fresh new opinions.

What it comes to the worldwide solutions, mainly US proposal, major media in Britain also had some coverage, such as the short “message” from Telegraph in technology section. Generally speaking, it was a plain article filled with key facts regarding the event, though some interviews were included. The same articles was posted in Telegraph in finance section as well, with a different headline which maybe appealed more to business readers “ narrows scope of the project” instead of “digital library hurdle”.

Times online is among the negative ones as to whether the new proposal could benefit the company and authors around the world. In all, it was informative and unbiased trying to explain the background and the content of the proposal with interviews. As a major newspaper in UK, though the event was not particularly related to UK, Times still took the effort to consider the opinions from other parts of the world, such as the details from Chinese situation. In the end, Times also localised the news with interview from British Publishers Association, which made the news relevant and worthy reading for local audience.

Compared with other domestic media, FT took a more detailed and professional approach with the proposal. Presenting a really long article, FT took the headline differently from the ones in other media, focus on the authors instead of Google. (Headline: Authors win Google book concession).But main body of the article was neither about the efforts of authors nor the “drama” at all. It was very impressive in the parts which presented the details of the agreement and compared it line by line with the old ones. Informative for professional readers, but boring and lengthy for readers like me. Luckily, the editor seemed to realise the setback of this arrangement already, when additional column was set aside marking the “key point” in the new agreement.

Speaking of the professional style of financial media, this one in FT set an example. Firstly, only this piece and the coverage on Bloomberg (which will be discussed later) have mentioned the opinions from Google’s business rivals. To consider from the digital books business, FT and Bloomberg both came up with the potential risk of Google monopoly in the industry resulting from the new agreement. Secondly, every citation and opinions from the interviewees were clearly marked with the name and position of the speaker. When comparing with the Times online article in question, it is easily noticed that with the same contents, Times interpreted it as one part of analysis while FT stated the speaker clearly. No wonder that people turn to media like FT for more convincing and accurate financial information.

Now continue with the one on Bloomberg. Though much shorter than FT one, it did include the main important facts of the issue. A fresh resource of information, the official statement from Google on its corporate web site was cited. Besides, as I mentioned, Bloomberg also commented on the issue from the angle of whole industry and presented similar quotation as FT did. However, it provided us with much more information about the rival companies, which was confusing and somehow irrelevant. Inserted abruptly in the article, the part was a brief introduction of two major rivals, Amazon and Microsoft, as well as their intention to enter the online book publishing business.

As far as I am concerned, the agreement at least benefits most of the researchers around the world, but since it only applies to US and three other countries, it is too early to say what the impact will be in the global scale. On the other hand, the online book market indeed has been growing tremendously with more competitors. As a result, the copyright issue becomes more pressing and evitable in the future. Google Book is just a start and it grabbed attention due to the brand Google.