[photopress:yahoo_china.jpg,full,alignright]Eleven music companies are suing Yahoo! China, owned by Chinese e-commerce Alibaba, over its alleged involvement in illegal downloading and playing copyrighted music.
Led by industry group International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), companies, including EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music and Universal Music, are suing Yahoo! China for about RMB5.5 million in damages.
John Kennedy, IFPI chairman, told the Financial Times, ‘We expect to eventually win. We believe they are involved in infringing our members’ rights on a major scale.’
A spokesman for Alibaba told China Daily that Yahoo! China only provides Web links in its music search results and should not be held responsible for contents of third-party websites.
In November, another Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, won a similar lawsuit launched by IFPI. But IFPI has said it is confident its case against Yahoo!China is strong and that it’s unwilling to wait until the result of its appeal against the Baidu ruling.
Yu Guofu, chief lawyer of Sam Partners Law Firm, who contended that such cases are still controversial in China, said, ‘I think the Baidu ruling will act as a negative precedent if IFPI fails to raise stronger evidence in its new lawsuit.
‘But I don’t think record companies will get what they want if they continue to regard Internet companies as their No 1 revenue killer. I think there will be more cooperation than conflict in the future.’
Source: China Daily
You must log in to post a comment.