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By Paul Biba

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Now here’s a fascinating article from the Japan Times. Copyright is very different in Japan and the settlement is evidently causing a lot of confusion because our concepts are so different. The full article is well worth reading:

… Japanese rights holders might have been slow to react to the settlement because in Japan legal provisions such as “class action” and “fair use” do not exist. Also, under Japanese copyright laws, publishers have no copyright over books that they publish — the authors are the only ones with copyright interests, and they are not responsive to the Google settlement, industry experts said.

If Google had scanned copyrighted books in Japan without the authors’ approval — as it did in the U.S. — it would be considered illegal, said Takanori Minamikawa, an official at the copyright division at the Cultural Affairs Agency. But neither the agency nor the Foreign Ministry have shown any sign that they will act against Google, with officials at both agencies saying that they are just “collecting information” at this stage because it concerns a “private-sector” business deal in the U.S.

Akio Makabe, professor of economics at Shinshu University in Nagano Prefecture, who has authored more than 10 books, said that he feels Google “jumped the gun” on its Book Search project. “It’s like we (people in Japan) are asked to play a game of mah-jongg according to rules Google has created,” he said. …

An editor of manga books at a major publishing house, who asked not to be named, meanwhile, said he is concerned because the project contradicts Google’s corporate mission. “The project, under which only people in the U.S. will have access to the database, goes against Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible,” he said.

He also said that in Japan, it is very difficult to determine whether a book is in print or out of print, as some books are often reprinted shortly after going out of print. If the settlement gets court approval, Google will determine whether a book is in print or not.

 
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