Music cos sue China’s Internet firms over piracy

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Music companies have launched a new battle with China’s Internet industry over music piracy, filing lawsuits accusing popular websites Baidu.com and Sohu.com of aiding illicit online copying, an industry group said.

The suits ask a Beijing court to order Baidu and Sohu to remove from their search engines links to thousands of sites that carry unlicensed copies of music, the International Federation of Phonographic Industries said.

Music companies lost an earlier lawsuit against Baidu. But China later changed its piracy standards, and companies won a similar case last year against Yahoo.com’s China arm.

“We sent notices to Baidu to get them to take down the links and they failed to comply, so we had to sue them,” said the IFPI’s Asia regional director, Leong May Seey.

The latest case was filed by Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd, as well as Hong Kong-based Gold Label Entertainment Ltd, according to the IFPI.

“All of the Chinese companies involved operate similar services based on delivering music to their users via ‘deep links’ to hundreds of thousands of infringing tracks on third-party sites, with the aim of driving their own advertising revenue,” the IFPI said in a statement.

Meanwhile, web search leader Google is planning to boost its presence in China by tying up with a Chinese online music company to provide free music downloads.

A report, quoting people close to the situation, said Google was in the late planning stages of a venture and will likely offer access to tunes from three global music companies as well as dozens of smaller brands.

The service could start in the next several weeks barring any last-minute problems, it said. The move would come as Google struggles to wrestle market share from Baidu.com, which dominates the Chinese search market and offers music search.

China is a leading source of pirated music, software, movies and other goods. Companies say violations are growing even though Beijing has stepped up penalties and enforcement efforts.

The IFPI says more than 99% of all music files distributed in Chin are pirated.