Baidu faces another 'Copyright infringement' lawsuit

Baidu.com Inc., China’s Internet search firm, has been sued by an industry group for songwriters and lyricists in China over an alleged violation of copyrighted materials, according to a statement released by the Chinese Music Copyright Society for copyright infringement on Sunday.

In the statement the group said it sued Baidu in January, accusing China's top search engine of "providing music listening, broadcasting and downloading services in various forms on its Web site without approval, and through unfettered piracy, earning huge advertising revenue on its huge number of hits."

Filed in a Beijing court in January, the lawsuit claims Baidu offered 50 copyrighted songs illegally. The lawsuit seeks CN¥1 million (about US$140,000) in damages, and demands Baidu remove links to thousands of sites that carry unlicensed copies of music.

Beijing-based Internet search engine Baidu.com, which takes its name from an ancient Chinese poem about a man in search of love, is China's most popular search engine, with 60.1 percent of the sector's revenues, followed by Google Inc.'s China arm with 25.9 percent, and Yahoo Inc.'s China site with 9.6 percent.

Baidu’s search engine allows users to listen to and search for song files for free. Baidu got significant boost after adding an MP3 search tool on its Web site that lets users find and download a variety of Chinese music. It also links directly to MP3s, movie rips, and other copyrighted content.

"Baidu is not the only search engine involved in infringing music copyrights, but currently it is the largest," said Qu Jingming, director of the Music Copyright Society of China. "We can only 'capture the ringleader first in order to catch all the followers.'"

This is not the first time Baidu is facing such lawsuit rather in February, the London-based International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) said that several music companies, including Universal Music Ltd., Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd., Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd. and Hong Kong-based Gold Label Entertainment Ltd., have sued Baidu, demanding Baidu remove links to thousands of sites that carry unauthorized copies of music.

Piracy is a significant problem in China, partially due to the comparatively high cost of DVDs and music in a country with lower living standards. According to IFPI estimates, up to 99 percent of all music consumed in China is pirated.

Baidu is the leading Chinese search engine that can search websites, audio files, and images. It provides an index of more than 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files. Its interface is cloned from the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet search and online advertising company Google.