A group of major music companies are preparing to sue Yahoo China over
complaints the popular search engine violates copyrights by linking to Web sites
that offer pirated music, the group's chairman said Tuesday.
"Yahoo China have been blatantly infringing our members' rights," said John
Kennedy of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries. "We are
taking the preliminary steps required by Chinese law for filing a lawsuit."
IFPI says Yahoo China links to outside sites with unlicensed MP3 downloads of
hundreds of songs. Yahoo China is operated by Alibaba.com Corp., which is 40
percent owned by Mountain View, Calif.-based Yahoo Inc. It is one of China's
most popular search engines, along with Baidu.com.
IFPI could file its lawsuit within a few weeks, said Kennedy, who was in
Beijing for meetings with government officials. The group represents more than
1,400 recording companies in 73 countries, including major U.S., European and
Asian labels.
A spokesman for Yahoo China, Porter Erisman, said the search engine is acting
"within the law."
"We respect intellectual property rights," he said. "If someone sees
something on our site that violates intellectual property rights, there is a
process for removing it."
Erisman said the company is talking with music companies about creating a
licensed music download system for China.
Kennedy wouldn't say how much money the lawsuit would ask for in damages. He
said it also would request a court order to stop copyright infringement.
A new Chinese law that took effect Saturday allows the government to fine
online distributors of illegally copied music, movies or software.
Kennedy said the IFPI also is talking to Baidu.com Inc. about the search
engine's links to outside pirate Web sites but hasn't taken legal action.
Baidu.com responded to complaints last year by adding a disclaimer to its Web
site saying it "fights piracy" and promises to remove links to sites that
infringe copyrights. But the site continues to link to sites that the IFPI says
offer unlicensed downloads.
