According to Hou Xiaoqiang, CEO of Shanda Literature, the company plans to start a lawsuit against Google to push the global search engine towards better transparency and a higher sense of corporate social responsibility.
Hou says Shanda Literature, which is a subsidiary of Chinese online game game company Shanda, started contact with Google before the latest Spring Festival holiday in January 2009. Shanda Literature asked Google to assume its sense of corporate social responsibility and add necessary warnings to links that contained suspected pirated content, but it has not yet gained a direct response from Google. For the next step, Shanda Literature plans to launch a lawsuit against Google.
In response to Shanda Literature's statement, local media reports that Google China says it has already checked with Shanda Literature and there will not be any lawsuit. The two sides have communicated about this issue and will continue their cooperation.
Hou says Shanda Literature will take an open attitude towards piracy websites. If these websites can stop pirating the literary works on Shanda Literature, the company is willing to cooperate with these websites in a legal way and create a mutually beneficial business relationship. In addition, Shanda Literature says it will not only fight piracy, but also will guide people to read genuine works online.
Google China says that as a search engine, Google.com does not own the rights of the contents and it can help the copyright owners to find those websites that illegally publish the contents. Google maintains a fair and transparent policy and procedure in dealing with controversial search results and illegal links. Under this procedure, any user or organization can issue a deletion application to Google and the company will delete illegal search results as soon as possible after full verification.
