[photopress:baidu_small.jpg,full,alignright]Baidu.com, which is the leading Chinese Internet-search company being considerably ahead of Google, has won a lawsuit filed against it by a group of music companies over its MP3 search engine. This is part of the ongoing efforts by the music industry (and other media) to win intellectual-property protection in China’s courts.
The ruling, which was announced by the industry group and can still be appealed and is not yet publicly available so the exact basis may change the impact.
Basically the music industry said that Baidu’s practice of so-called deep linking to unlicensed songs stored on other Web sites was a breach of copyright. There are probably no parallels in any other form of publishing.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)filed the suit last year in Beijing on behalf of seven companies over the public-transmission rights of 195 recordings, which Baidu had made accessible to the public. It is suggested the lawsuit sought damages of RMB1.67 million, or about $212,000.
The IFPI said it plans to appeal the ruling. IFPI’s chairman and chief executive, John Kennedy, said, ‘I am amazed by this inexplicable judgment that is totally out of step with Chinese law and with court decisions made against similar services around the world.’
The music industry has won similar cases against deep linking in the Netherlands, Norway and Australia.
A Baidu spokeswoman said the company won the case but declined to provide a copy of the judgement. An attorney for Baidu, Li Decheng, said ‘I agree with this first-instance judgment. But it’s not the final judgment. If IFPI appeals, Baidu surely will respond.’
Source: Wall Street Journal