Indian authors go after Google
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- On the heels of claims by Chinese authors that online advertising company Google published their works without permission, writers in India are leveling the same charge.
The Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation (IRRO) and Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) “moved a US court against the Google Book Settlement’s (GBS 2.0) alleging copyright violation for scanning several books in Indian languages without notifying the authors,” says the Economic Times of India.
“Google’s unilateral conduct is a brazen attempt to turn copyright law on its head, by usurping the exclusive rights of the copyright holder”, thje story has IRRO lawyer Siddharth Arya stating, going on:
“In the name of innovation, Google has scanned several thousands of copyrighted books with no permission from the authors – whether for free or for value. They have also scanned books in India vernacular languages.
“This is a clear violation of Indian and international copyright laws.”
Under the Google Library Project, it’s scanned millions of books under copyright protection “by reaching an agreement with several universities in the US,” says the story, quoting Arya as saying, “The outcome of all of this was GBS 2.0 that incorporates minor cosmetic changes but continues to violate basic copyright laws. It retains several fundamental issues in the original settlement such as a mechanism known as ‘opt out’.”
“This implies that if a person is silent, he is deemed to have consented to an agreement, thus fundamentally altering his rights, a concept inherently unfair and contrary to existing legal principles,” he added.
The ‘Opt Out’ scheme is probably Google’s most successful ploys.
It wires people into products such as Street View without telling them, and without their permission, and then asks them to ‘Opt Out’ if they don’t like it.
In China, “Google is willing to apologise to Chinese authors” the China Daily said, quoting Yang Chengzhi, secretary of the Chinese Writers Association (CWA), as stating:
“We will have a serious study of the apology and hear the authors’ opinions before we decide whether or not to accept Google’s apology.”
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
without permission – Google says ‘Sorry’ to Chinese authors, January 11, 2010
Economic Times of India – Indian publishers move court against Google, January 28, 2010
China Daily – Google apologizes to Chinese writers, January 11, 2010
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January 30th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
No doubt about it, Americans are used to copyright imperialism.
That is why American music publisher own or better, allege to own the works of so many third world authors, based on contracts signed after a few drinks and the exchange of a (very) few dollars. The publishers audacity in stealing has now gone further. Publishers (Google is a publisher) simply want to take over the works of entire countries in a swoop.
Google does what it does because they know that then can hide behind a corrupt legal system that in the end will not punish corporations like they did Jammie Thomas. Their lawyers know that.