Home / Business / News Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read | Comment
Baidu Faces New Lawsuit over Music Piracy
Adjust font size:

A Chinese music website has filed a lawsuit against Baidu.com, demanding a suspension of its service that allows access to free music products owned by the plaintiff and 100 million yuan (US$13 million) in compensation.

 

5fad.com announced on Wednesday in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, that Baidu, one of China's largest Internet search engines, had posted links to websites offering free playing and downloading of more than 1,000 pieces of its copyrighted music through a so-called "deep link" function.

 

Wu Duanping, president of Zhejiang Fanya E-commerce Co. Ltd., which owns the website, said his company suffered financial losses because of Baidu's downloading service. He said 5fad had sent dozens of formal notifications to Baidu asking it to suspend the service, but Baidu had failed to respond.

 

Beijing High People's Court has accepted the case.

 

An officer with the media department of Baidu.com said in a telephone interview with Xinhua that it was the fifth lawsuit lodged by 5fad.com against Baidu since last year over illegal MP3 downloading.

 

The music website had withdrawn the charges twice, a Zhejiang court turned down one case and a Beijing court ruled in favor of Baidu in a final-instance verdict, said the officer who declined to give her name.

 

She did not rule out the possibility that 5fad was trying to promote itself by filing charges against Baidu.

 

She claimed that Baidu had made efforts in the protection of Internet intellectual property rights.

 

The case came after a group of international music companies lost a lawsuit against Baidu last year for similar copyright infringement accusations.

 

EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music accused Baidu of engaging in illegal downloading and playing of music owned by them without their permission, demanding the suspension of its download service and 1.73 million yuan in compensation.

 

However, a Beijing intermediate court ruled in favor of Baidu, which did not constitute an infringement as all the music is downloaded from web servers of third parties.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2007)

Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read
Comment
Pet Name
Anonymous
China Archives
Related >>
- Sina, Yahoo and Baidu in Internet Copyright Wrangle
- EMI Opens Copyright Info Search Engine
- Record Companies Lose Lawsuit Against Baidu
- Radio, TV Stations to Pay Copyright Fees
- Baidu-EMI Alliance Completed
- Yahoo! China Loses Music Download Case
- Rock Records-Baidu Team Up For Free Music Service
Most Viewed >>

Nov. 1-2 Tianjin World Shipping (China) Summit
Nov. 7-9 Guangzhou Recycling Metals International Forum
Nov. 27-28 Beijing China-EU Summit
Dec. 12-13 Beijing China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue

- Output of Major Industrial Products
- Investment by Various Sectors
- Foreign Direct Investment by Country or Region
- National Price Index
- Value of Major Commodity Import
- Money Supply
- Exchange Rate and Foreign Exchange Reserve
- What does the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement cover?
- How to Set up a Foreign Capital Enterprise in China?
- How Does the VAT Works in China?
- How Much RMB or Foreign Currency Can Be Physically Carried Out of or Into China?
- What Is the Electrical Fitting in China?