The Beijing Higher People's Court has made a final judgment that upholds a lower court's ruling that ordered Yahoo! China to pay damages to 11 major record companies for facilitating free music downloads, sources said on Monday.

Yahoo! China appealed to the Beijing Higher People's Court after losing the lawsuit at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediary People's Court in April.

The Beijing No. 2 Intermediary Court had ordered Yahoo! China to pay 210,000 yuan (US$28,510) in damages to the 11 companies, which include EMI, Warner Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.

It also told Yahoo! China to delete the links that allowed Internet users to download 229 songs from other sites.

The record companies began court proceedings in early January, saying that the music had been played or downloaded without their permission, and they demanded 5.5 million yuan in damages.

Yahoo! China insisted that, as a search engine, it only provided links in its music search results and should not be held responsible for the content of third-party Web sites.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2007)