China Tells

China has a huge potential market for online books or palm books, as in many other countries. Imagine that you can read a novel when you are travelling in a train, without having to carry a huge pile of paper. Without doubt the need from consumers is there. Obviously Google has spotted the business opportunity and already started to scan the books into their hard driver and offer for download on internet (See Article from China Daily). Whether such an activity is illegal, however, is raising heated debates. To my personal view, it is obviously against the copy right of the author of the books, and the publisher, particularly in a context that Google is a profit seeking organization and there are commercial benefit for them to offer free download of such books. Google is trying to address the legal issue with two copy right organizations in US, and plan to do the same in China. It is very possible that Google reaches an agreement with the copy right organization to pay a loyalty for every book downloaded. Such could mark a historical move in book industry and creates market for book readers such as iphone or palm.

网络图书的市场潜力毋庸置疑.现在大多数人每年都会花很多时间在舟车劳顿上,如果有一本电子书籍,不用扛着种种的纸页就可以浏览自己喜欢的作品,一定会受到很多人的欢迎.谷歌明显看到了这个市场,而且已经开始将很多书籍扫描进其数据库.问题之一是这种做法是否合法,特别是以商业目的扫描书籍提供下载,和盗版还有什么区别么.