Baidu.com, China's largest search engine, has lost the suit
against Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Company over its free
music downloads service. Other music companies such as Cinepoly, Go
East and Gold Label have filed similar lawsuits against it for
alleged infringement of copyrights.
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Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Company, an affiliate of the
EMI record label also known as Shanghai Push, filed a copyright
infringement suit against Baidu alleging that it allowed users to
download 53 of its songs. A court in Beijing's Haidian district
ruled on September 16 in favor of Shanghai Busheng and ordered
Baidu to pay 68,000 yuan in damages.
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"We will never compromise." Robin Yanhong Li, the CEO of Baidu,
said of the free downloads issue in an interview with the
National Business Daily after the verdict.
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Baidu has appealed the decision, saying that the court didn't
understand the MP3 service process and working pattern of search
engines.
Cinepoly, Go East and Gold Label are also suing Baidu in a move
that could force it to shut down its MP3 search service, a key to
the company's popularity among young Chinese Internet users.
"We confirm that Baidu is being sued for alleged infringement of
music copyright," said Baidu's vice president of marketing, Liang
Dong, who did not give further details.
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Liang said Baidu only provides a music search service rather than
downloads and added that the firm was communicating with the
plaintiffs.
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The music companies allege that Baidu has made it easy for users to
download free copies of their songs via its MP3 search engine, the
Hong Kong-based Standard newspaper reported.
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Beijing New Picture Distribution is also suing Baidu for alleged
piracy of the martial arts drama, The House of Flying
Daggers.
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Although the plaintiffs are seeking compensation, what they most
want is the suspension of services that allow Internet users to
gain free access to copyrighted material.
After having received complaints about illegal download links,
Baidu had actually deleted links last July, among which 3,000
outrageous links to a particular hit song were removed while
investigations into another 5,000 links were launched.
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"As a matter of fact, we're just a search engine that tells users
where things are – this has been our business model since we
started. If the copyright owners can prove their ownership of songs
or other items, and pinpoint the pirates, we will definitely delete
the links once for all."
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About 28 percent of Baidu's traffic is derived from sites that
allow users to download copyright-protected songs and movies for a
small fee or for free in some cases. The legal status of Baidu's
search function that helps Internet users access pirated music and
videos has raised eyebrows.
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Zhang Chaoyang, CEO of Sohu.com, wasn't so worried about the
copyright issue. He said the traffic from MP3 search services is
not that valuable for search engines, but "its contribution is the
greatest." He added that this is not a new problem and might be
resolved by sharing profits with record companies. Another Chinese
portal, NetEase, had to shut down its MP3 search service on August
15 because most of the songs on the Internet were copyright
protected.?
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Last Wednesday, Baidu's Liang was reported to have met with several
music company executives to discuss the copyright issue. A source
said the goal was to "cooperate and make a platform for legal music
downloads." Liang said the discussions were "positive."
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"From the copyright point of view, we think differently from the
music companies. Baidu is just a platform for music search," Liang
said.
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Baidu's options
There are currently only two models for Internet music that are
profitable. One is the value-added services (VAS) model, providing
SMS/MMS and ring tone services; the other is "Apple Mode" accessed
via iTunes.
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Baidu might decide to adopt the VAS model first. Baidu won't
necessarily offer the ring tone downloads but could be a kind of
"distributor" for service providers. While negotiations with ring
tone companies continue, Baidu is scheduled to redirect all ring
tone download links to official ones, and gradually get rid of the
illegal ones. This way, Baidu can share profits with the service
providers.
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Baidu also hopes to be a direct distributor for record companies.
Song Ke, CEO of Taihe Rye Music, suggested that just as music
broadcasting rotations on TV and radio don't infringe copyrights,
record companies could also avoid the issue and discuss how to sell
music by putting them on Internet platforms like
Baidu.????
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One way of doing this, Liang Dong told the National Business
Daily, would be to set up special features in its MP3 section
and provide direct links to record companies' websites. This would
be a good way to channel Baidu's user traffic to the record company
websites.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, September 20, 2005)