http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/technology/internet/31google.html "Two Chinese writers’ groups claim that Google has scanned Chinese works into an electronic database in violation of international copyright standards. The organizations are urging China’s authors to step forward and defend their rights.
“Google has seriously violated the copyrights of Chinese authors. That is an undeniable fact,” Chen Qirong, a spokesman for the China Writers’ Association, said by telephone. The group says it represents nearly 9,000 writers."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afc1cfda-d128-11de-b591-00144feabdc0.html "Under the new settlement, works will only be included in the ambitious digital project if they have been registered in the US, or come from the UK, Australia and Canada – countries which have “contributed the largest number of English-language works to American libraries,” according to the parties to the settlement. The similarities in their legal systems and the structure of their publishing industries made it appropriate for these countries to be included, according to the backers of the settlement.
The changes will mean that 95 per cent of all foreign works will no longer be included in Google’s digital book archive, said Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidupedia#Copyright and http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/nov2007/gb20071113_725400.htm in case anyone has forgotten.)