Fear not the unknown frontier

Last Friday, Google Inc, along with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, submitted a revised version of a pact - which was first released in October 2008 - to the US Justice Department.

On Nov 14, a senior Google executive said that the company would like to reach a similar agreement with Chinese publishers and writers, even as they, and their lawyers, were becoming more and more discontented with Google's approach.

The skirmish between Chinese authors and Google's digital library - Google Books - is, in fact, a dispute over divergent understanding of "information". At the same time, it highlights the worries of China's publishing industry, which disseminates information mainly through books and other print media.