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Comments: 247 +- News: Google Accused of Violating Copyright In China on Thursday November 19, @08:23PM
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angry tapir writes "The Chinese Authors Society has demanded that Google present a resolution plan by the end of the year and quickly handle compensation for Chinese authors whose books the US company has scanned without permission as part of its Book Search program. A local copyright protection group, co-founded by the authors group, has said it found at least 17,000 Chinese works included in Google's scanning plan."
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under the acta google will be down in less then 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
under the acta google will be down in less then 1 hour
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I say block all of china and china sites from google access or listing. Screw em. Honestly China's e-commerce will crumble overnight if Google shut them off. with a " Google will not give results to sites that are in untrustable and hostile countries like china.
China's Economy RELIES on the United states, a large company that is used by 60% of all internet users to find information can cripple an entire countries economy instantly by blocking them.
Show china who is boss. Delist them all.
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Re:under the acta google will be down in less then (Score:4, Insightful)
China has something like $1 trillion of our debt. If they dumped it - and they're not against this tactic - we'd all long for last year's economic downturn.
They fucking own us. Literally and figuratively.
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Re:under the acta google will be down in less then (Score:5, Insightful)
In exchange we got a lot of their material goods
If they abruptly ended the relationship one day and called in our debt, we would just default and they'd be left with nothing.
What option would they be left with? Go to war? Fat chance -- wars nowadays are fought with technology, not numbers of soldiers... and we spend almost as much as the rest of the world *combined* on defense (we spend $600 billion a year on military, whereas China is the 2nd highest with under $90 billion a year)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute_figures [wikipedia.org]
In the meantime, we would still have their manufactured items, and we'd just take our IP (read: engineering designs) to Malaysia or some other place (e.g. Mexico) for our manufacturing needs.
They don't "own us" -- it's a mutually beneficial relationship that requires both parties to take part.
Every country that plays the "globalization" game gets the benefits from and the dependency on every other player. As it stands now, they depend on us just like we depend on them. That could change, but it'd likely be a gradual change, or else a painful change for *both* sides.
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Re:under the acta google will be down in less then (Score:5, Insightful)
They fucking own us. Literally and figuratively.
If you owe the bank $100,000 they own you, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 you own them.
China's fate is just as wrapped up in the value of that debt as our own is.
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If you owe the bank $100,000 they own you, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 you own them.
In Walt Disney's biography there's a story about him giving a head of state of state of some country a tour of the brand new Disneyland when it first opened in the fifties. The man looked at the giant, clean, futuristic theme park and said "you must be a very rich man."
Disney replied "Yes, I must be, I'm in debt for millions of dollars!"
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In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news, Baidu implement a website to download MP3s
http://mp3.baidu.com/ [baidu.com]
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I don't know about you, but I do not read or speak Cantonese or Mandarin (if that is what that was) and thus found it difficult to figure out what is what on that site.
Regardless, I didn't see Britney Spears or anyone even remotely non-asian on that website (the lil' pictures) so I have to assume it is all Chinese music.
So what is your point?
I assume you are implying that the MP3s on that site are all illegal downloads (given the context of the thread) yet I cannot seem to locate anything on that site that
Re:In other news (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about you, but I do not read or speak Cantonese or Mandarin (if that is what that was) and thus found it difficult to figure out what is what on that site.
You also seem to not know how to use an internet translator...
Regardless, I didn't see Britney Spears or anyone even remotely non-asian on that website (the lil' pictures) so I have to assume it is all Chinese music.
Oh really? What about the section titled " [Japan and South Korea Pop]" or another titled " [Europe and the United States Songs]"? Also, turns out Britney Spears is listed as #5 under "[Europe and the United States singers]", you just didn't bother to mouse over the tabs. China only cares about copyright violation only when they're the ones on the losing end, but this is nothing new.
On a side note, I wonder how much the US national debt is compared to the total amount of software, music and movies China has pirated over the years. Both would astronomical, but are we talking Pluto, or Alpha Centauri?
P.S. mod grandparent [debile] up, blatant hypocrisy is blatant.
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in other news, so does google:
http://google.cn/mp3 [google.cn]
only accessible from certain countries' IPs
It doesn't go both ways (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't go both ways (Score:4, Informative)
Do the Chinese even use Google much? I thought the most popular search engine there was Baidu [baidu.com]. In fact, I seem to recall that China redirected Google to Baidu at least once.
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Re:It doesn't go both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, lose a chance at the biggest market available?
Or the other, bend over to all of China's whims?
Such a hard decision for companies...
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Copywrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a privateer. I decided to become one recently. What sparked this decision is the fact that content industries are stealing from me. When copyright was first introduced it was for a period of fourteen years which allowed the creator time to make a profit off of their work even with primitive dissemination systems of the time. After that period it expired and entered the public domain where it would join other works in a rich mosaic for future works to draw from. This is dead. Over the years copyright terms have been extended to the point where there effectively is no public domain anymore. The content industry plays lip-service to the issue, they insist that there is a public domain but when every work is at least life of author plus seventy-five years or so there is in reality no public domain from my life's point of view. I will never see Alien (1979) enter the public domain. I will never see a new original movie based off that setting and characters. I will never see the iron grip of control loosened and in fact I'm sure content is planning more extensions to the terms. Government is complicit in this, politicians have accepted bribes, er.. campaign donations, in exchange for listening to these idiotic and greedy lobbies and passing the appropriate legislation right on cue like their training taught them. Even if magically there are no more extensions to copyright by the time current terms expire the works in question will be irrelevant. No one will be interested in them any more as their times have passed. This gutting of the copyright agreement between publishers and citizens has resulted in copyright not being copyright anymore: it is now a form of property and you will pay for every single last use. In response to this wholesale theft from me I have decided to liberate what I see fit. Go to hell content. I will take whatever I like as you are raping and pillaging through my cultural tapestry. The day I stop will be the day there is an actual agreement restored. I would be willing to settle for twenty years for a copyright term which is even more generous than the original fourteen. With a twenty year period I would also like to see as a punishment for twisting our heritage that only copyrights younger than ten years would be protected from the start. In another ten you'd be up to your twenty. Bite me content you're a parasite and you are stealing from me directly. Anything 1989 and older is a moral right to me and until you stop reneging on the social contract everything newer is as well.
Re:Copywrong. (Score:4, Informative)
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Most Americans have never heard of Ron Paul, let alone anyone who isn't from the USA.
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Most Americans have never heard of Ron Paul, let alone anyone who isn't from the USA.
Isn't he the guy who got into the zeppelin wars with Cory Doctorow? I forget which colour his lightsabre was, though.
- Australian
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Bite me content you're a parasite and you are stealing from me directly
How is content stealing from you? It's not taking anything away from you. It's never been easier to get your own content out there, and that is what is actually happening. The idea of deriving corporate power from copyright is going to be silly because, yeah, the Alien movie with guys in a spaceship fighting an alien may never be public domain, but who fricking cares because there's 100 movies and video games out there aliens in spaces
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*Whoosh!* They ARE stealing from you. (Score:5, Insightful)
*Whoosh!* There goes the point right over your head. Big content is stealing from you.
They're taking your history and your heritage. Imagine a ludicrous extreme, such as the hospital you were born in saying that you can no longer use the name that you were given at birth unless you pay for it because it happened on their premises, therefore they own the rights to it. Or if you are in immigrant, imagine someone telling you that you can no longer describe where you're from, because that information is "owned" by the country from which you came. (God forbid you draw a map!)
Similarly, the music that was on the radio when I was a child? I'm prohibited by law from sharing that with my friends. Movies that have become so deeply ingrained in our culture that we constantly refer to them... "May the force be with you." "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more." "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" Yeah, in spite of them being part of the very fabric of our culture, you're legally prohibited from sharing them with your kids without paying your pound of flesh to people who did something great decades ago (or in some cases, to estates of long dead people).
Look, I'm all for compensating artists justly for what they do. In 1962, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr released a clever little song called Love Me Do. It was a bona fide hit, and they made a lot of money off of it. So be it, they deserve it. But now it's 47 years later. Do you really contend that the song was so unbelievably great, so untouchably amazing, that Paul, Ringo, and the estates of George and John should STILL be making money when a radio plays it?
Or let's look at it another way. Don't you think that's being way too overgenerous to artists? I mean, these past few years, I've been doing some of the greatest work in my professional life in a computer datacenter. I've gotten consistently great reviews, and I feel like I've made a real positive difference for the company where I'm employed. They've paid me well, I'm not complaining. But if I walked out tomorrow, wouldn't you agree that it's kind of silly to expect them to STILL keep paying me because they're enjoying the fruits of my labor while I worked there? 50 years after I'm dead, should they STILL be paying my estate because my contributions in the first decade of the 2000's contributed to the history of the company being great?
When I retire, I'm going to be living off of money I've saved up during my lifetime specifically because I don't expect my former employers to still be paying for my work 70 years after I die. Why is it that an artist who writes a hit song, a writer who writes a best-seller, an actor who turns in an Oscar-winning performance, gets that luxury? My opinion is that if you want to continue making money off of your work, get out there and work like the rest of us do. No one should get a lifetime + 70 years of resting on their laurels because they did something great. Like the rest of us, if they want to retire in comfort, they should set aside some of the money they make during the height of their popularity so they'll have it after the limited time [usconstitution.net] that copyright is supposed to be valid.
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Re:Copywrong. (Score:4, Funny)
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The content industry plays lip-service to the issue, they insist that there is a public domain but when every work is at least life of author plus seventy-five years or so there is in reality no public domain from my life's point of view.
The answer is to instantly kill anyone who makes a really good movie, or a book, and then just patiently... wait...
On your rocking chair on the porch, with a happy, knowing smile on your face.
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Re:Copywrong. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Haha (Score:5, Interesting)
/trollish mode on
Slashdot americanism knee-jerk on anything about China is just amazing.
/trollish mode off
This is not news. It was on local TV news several days ago. Basically, the Author's Society (a "guild"-like organization) said to Google something like this: "We know the benefits of scanned-and-indexed books and we want digital libraries, but why you're not paying for the copyrighted content?" So far the parties are negotiating a plan that is supposed to achieve mutual benefit.
BTW, I think Google was doing a right thing simply putting those books on-line and negotiate later. In the words of Admiral Grace Hopper, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." The books acquired without negotiating copyright serves as a good corpus of OCR calibration or "training" material. While the legal dept are doing the talking, the techies can take the time sharpen the tech.
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it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Indeed, Sony must think the same way [torrentfreak.com].
Of course, corporations can do this, but you're evil if you do it, citizen.
The Only Answer! (Score:2, Interesting)
Since we in the US seem to now be also controlled by every governments' copyright laws the only answer is to insure that all of us at every single moment are under perpetual surveillance to be absolutely certain that we comply with the laws of every brutal, jerk water, banana republic on the face of the Earth. After all copyright is just sooooooo important!
You know... (Score:2)
I can't help but wonder if this is retaliation for all the crap they get for infringing on non-China copyrights. You know, in a you-too, "Fine if you care about copyright so much pay up!" sort of way.
I can see them going after MS, since they like to pull BSA stunts in China. But, I don't know why Google, unless they just want to stick it to foreigners in general.
My guess (Score:2)
Hmmmm. Interesting (Score:2)
coordinated with obama visit (Score:3, Informative)
If the US wishes to preach the consequences of being on the world stage, China has a habit of coming right back at you.
A good example was a visit to New Zealand by the Chinese president a couple years back. NZ joined the chorus of mentioning Human Rights. Just before the visit China asked the question, so how were our immigrants coming to NZ treated?
For chinese coming to NZ:
- Thumb prints for chinese, yet no other nationality.
- Chinese people were deprived of the old age pension
- A poll tax of $100...just for chinese.
- Formal oraganisations, while not governmental, such as the Anti-Asiatic League
The governemt of New Zealand then felt compeled to issue a formal apology. Those that cast stones in glass houses....
Should this be a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Aside from the typical /. China bashing, why is anyone here surprised by this at all?
I mean, if you keep pressuring a country to "enforce IP rights" and keep spreading propaganda, uh, educational message about how many billions was "lost" due to IP rights violations. Is it that a surprise that the group of people who stands to gain the most would be responding, who those who stand to lose money will drag their feet?
Are so many /.ers here so blinded by their anti-China prejudice that you cannot even realize that with over 1 billion people, there will be different groups of people with different agenda? What's the point of lumping this authors' guild with software pirates in this discussion?
What's more, isn't this exactly the case for American companies to demonstrated how IP rights should be respected? Or will this be another demonstration of pure greed? Do you think anyone in China is going to take "IP rights" seriously (there are few enough who does so, but supposedly we want that to change, right?) if Google demonstrates that US companies are just going violate others right when it suits them?
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Yeah, pretty much they don't recognize external ip rights (which i think is awesome, not because of the freedom of stuff and stuff, but mostly because i'm always a fan of a good old fashioned screw-em mentality), and yet want theirs protected. Yeah...
Re:China have copyright ? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:China have copyright ? (Score:5, Funny)
But two Wrights made an airplane.
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I want my milk back (Score:2)
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Re:China have copyright ? (Score:4, Funny)
Two wongs don't make a right....
But occasionally, two Wongs make a white.
You know what they say...
Occidents will happen!
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Is this really about copyright? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Is this really about copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really about copyright?
Absolutely. The way the world works is, when you are the underdog you "steal" the IP of all the countries around you until you achieve some level of economic parity, and then you hypocritically pull the ladder up behind you to try and prevent anyone else from doing the same.
America did it. South Korea did it. Now, China is doing it. It's about preserving economic hegemony, nothing more.
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Really? Please provide proof of this. I seriously doubt you can. For starters, much of American laws were based on original UK law and Copyright and Patent had originated with UK. In fact, President Washington, who pushed for LIMITED TIME IP rights, has patent #1. Also, I believe that we provided protection to anyone that put an IP in our country regardless of citizenship. Of course, we did not use other nations IP system. Of course, NO NATION did, even after signing the berne treaty, none
Re:Is this really about copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
You clearly don't know your 18th century American or European history.
America built its textile industry, and indeed its prominence in the Industrial Revolution, only by flagrantly violating the patents of established European countries, especially those of Britain (and Scotland [wikipedia.org], the Silicon Valley of the day). In fact, the blatant colonial-day flouting of patent law and the use of "industrial espionage" (i.e. brain drain) against Britain was actually a significant pain point in the years leading into America's Revolutionary War [wikipedia.org], and tangentially figured into Britain's enthusiasm for the War of 1812.
(Copyrights were violated as well, but weren't considered as important at the time. Copyright itself was still crawling out of the cradle and unfamiliar to many — the first modern copyright law, the Statute of Anne, was passed only at the start of that century in 1709. At that point in time, copyright wasn't considered an economic engine, the way that patents were.)
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"Freedom is better than a tyrannical government."
Are you talking about China, or the 95-120 year copyright monopoly enforcement (with a potential 5 year jail time for copying silent films from the 1920's)?