Battling Baidu

Baidu.com, the largest Chinese search-engine website, might have won the first round of the legal battle against some of the world's most powerful record companies in providing links to sites offering free music download. But it is facing an even fiercer new attack from its opponents.

At a media conference early this month, Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC), China Audio-Video Copyright Association (CAVCA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in conjunction with an alliance of local and international record producers raised the ante by calling for an industry-wide advertising boycott of Baidu.com.

Separately, R2G, a digital music distribution and licensing company, filed a lawsuit against Baidu.com at the Beijing Haidian District People's Court on May 16, 2008, alleging that China's most popular search engine committed copyright infringement by providing illegal links to unauthorized music downloads. In a statement, R2G's chief executive officer Wu Jun said that this is only the beginning of a series of anti-piracy actions his company would take against Baidu.com.

In response, Baidu.com released an announcement in February and May saying that it is "paying high attention to the matter" raised by R2G.

This was certainly not the first time Baidu.com found itself in a litigation tussle. In July 2005, seven major music record companies, including Universal Music, Warner Music Group, EMI Group(Hong Kong), Sony BMG, sued Baidu.com for music copyright infringement. The plaintiff made a claim of 1.67 million yuan in damages.

The trail dragged on for two years before the court ruled in favor of Baidu.com. Guo Chunfei, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said after the ruling that her clients would file another suit which she said would stand a better chance of winning because of the introduction of the Regulation on Protection of the Right to Network Dissemination of Information on July 1, 2006.

The litigation against Baidu.com is not without precedent. Copyright lawyers have often cited the court case that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) won against Yahoo China as an example that has encouraged music companies to take legal action against piracy.

Government anti-piracy agencies are also seen to be taking more positive action against suspected offenders. For example, the Hebei provincial government's Copyright Bureau earlier this year fined Zhongsuo, one of China's top five search engines, 100,000 yuan for offering unauthorized streaming and downloadable music files. IFPI said this is the first time for an enforcement agency to take action against a search engine for suspected copyright infringement.

"This should send a signal to other offenders in the industry," Mayseey Leong, regional director of IFPI Hong Kong, was reported as saying.

In a statement on IFPI's website, John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive said: "The music industry in China wants partnership with the technology companies, but you cannot build partnership on the basis of systemic theft of copyrighted music and that is why we have been forced to take further actions."

Director-General Qu Jing Ming of Music Copyright Society of China said he hopes all the rights holders should called on the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), to propose that it use the full breadth of its administrative powers to supervise and fight piracy collectively.