Google has pulled out of talks with a government-affiliated writers' group in which the US firm was supposed to produce a complete list of the Chinese books it had scanned for its online library without authorisation.
The withdrawal by the California-based internet giant followed its formal apology over its poor communication with Chinese authors and a promise to work out a settlement with them by March.
Zhang Hongbo, deputy secretary general of China Written Works Copyright Society, said that yesterday morning Google announced it wanted to postpone the talks but did not specify to what date, China News Service reported yesterday.
Zhang said his organisation had asked Google why it had postponed what would have been the fourth round of negotiations.
According to the copyright society, nearly 18,000 books by Chinese authors had been added to Google Books without permission from the authors in a controversial project to digitise books and post them online.
On Sunday, Google formally apologised to Chinese authors about scanning their books into its online library and said it was ready to work out a settlement to allay copyright concerns.
The Chinese Writers' Association (CWA) said it received a letter from Google acknowledging its efforts had upset Chinese authors.
