Could Google’s book-digitization drive be up against a Great Wall of copyright in China—a rather porous one through which local rivals can easily slip?
The Chinese say Google didn’t seek proper authorization. Still, isn’t it interesting that just after Google ran up against opposition to scanning some 18,000 books, a Chinese company is about to crank up its own digitization efforts with the largest digital library in the country? Has Google tried to run roughshod over local laws—I won’t reach a conclusion one way or another—or are the Chinese playing dirty?
Here are more details on the Chinese company’s own plans. “Digital publishing solutions provider Founder Group is planning to build the largest digital library in China and expects digital publishing to account for 20 to 30 percent of its IT business in the near future, said a senior company executive,” reports China Daily. The expansion will take Founder’s Fanshu.com library from 500,000 scanned books to 1.8 million, according to a pickup of the CD report by Digital East Asia.
In a related vein, the same DEA article mentions a DisPlay search report saying that close to three million e-readers will be sold in China in 2010. Founder says it plans to sell one million then. By one estimate, that will be almost a fifth of the total in the world. Forbes. com says that the Chinese e-book reader market will surpass the U.S. one by 2015.
Of course, as I see it, the real action will be on smart cellphones and other multiuse devices.
(Thanks to Gary Price of ResourceShelf for these links.)
