Music Giants Sue Baidu Over Music Downloads

chengee writes "Music giants Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and their local subsidiaries are suing Chinese search engine Baidu for allegedly infringing the copyright of hundreds of songs, a press report said Friday. Looks like the party is going to be over for Chinese downloaders. But more importantly how will this lawsuit turn out in a place known for its lax copyright laws?"

Comments

Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to China.

Where you can walk down the street and buy hundreds of western media, IP, software and music products from corner pirate bootleggers, and nobody bats an eyelash.

But if you want to start a search engine that might help people find resources online, well, that won't be stood for. People might use that to "pirate" things.

This perfectly encapsulates the spirit of modern China: The capitalistic freedoms to lie, cheat and steal, but not the humanist freedoms to speak, organize and share information.

Re:Great.

[konungursvia]

Actually, lying, cheating and stealing *is* a significant part of capitalism. Worldcom, Tyco, the Savings and Loans scandals, you name it, these are just the tip of the iceberg.

But you're right that China is far worse for hypocrisy than we are, especially in the areas of a) the environment and b) intellectual property. I lived there for four years, and there is no concept of right and wrong there in most people's eyes, according to my perceptions. Just success and failure, and if you succeed, it doesn't matter if you found it, earned it, invented it, stole it, or won it, they see them all as the same thing: the Great Face of wealth. So if anyone thinks that what happens to Baidu after this news actually matters, they are naive. There are hundreds of sites in China where you can download all songs, current movies (usually 2 weeks before they come out in the States) and whatever else you want.

The US however is getting a lot more like China every year, particularly since the current Bush administration began. Big business buys the legislation it wants, including a complete backpedalling on the environment, drug approvals, suppression of information on herbal remedies, the Iraq war.... you name it.

I liken capitalism to the Olympics -- same competition, same rewards for cheating. The problem is, the US is no longer the good guy -- they are the ones refusing to crack down on steroids, and the ones whose economy is totally doped. Lack of medical care and other employee benefits, lack of environmental restraints, lack of respect for international agreements, lack of respect of NAFTA with my country (Canada), hypocrisy on dumping and international competition... Ronald Reagan once said, "America can outcompete anyone in the world, on a level playing field." If this was ever true, it is no longer the case. Europe and Canada have the only reasonably well-balanced versions of capitalism, and the US is the bully who always cheats. Too bad.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King.

Re:When it suits them...

[orzetto]

China has a track record of honoring treaties and peace when they have larger goals in sight. Once they have achieved those goals...

Give credit where credit is due. No country ever respected treaties they could infringe without fear of punishment, if they had something to gain from it.

It's just a fact of history: the signature on a treaty is no stronger than the signing arm.

Places with lax copyright laws

[cjkinniburgh]

If you have ever been to Malaysia, Russia, or Thailand, or any of the other main locations in which there are extremely lax copyright laws, you will agree with me when I say that this will change nothing. There may be a president set, after which we will see a stronger law, which may be enforced once or twice, like the 100 bat fine placed on anyone caught selling illegal videos and music at the PanTib center in Bangkok, but after the initial constrictions, I think that life will go on for those chinese downloaded. To you guys: It may take a while for the party to get going again, but dont put down your collar just yet, threes still a lot more sex drugs and alcohol to be had.

Google

[mysqlrocks]

"From the copyright point of view, we think differently than the music companies. Baidu is just a platform for music search," Liang said.

Why aren't they suing Google as well? Google makes it possible to find copyrighted material? Of course one could use a search engine to find the people who are providing illegal copies and sue them.

Lax Laws?

[Ahnteis]

Seems rather subjective to me. I mean, granted -- I'm no expert on China's copyright laws (but I can pretend if you'd like since this IS /.) but are their laws really lax or is the submitter just so used to his own laws that they SEEM lax. Personally, I find much of US copyright law overly restrictive and biased toward corporations.

Additionally, I don't know if laws can even be lax. Seems like it's the enforcement that should be called lax rather then the law. After all, the laws DEFINE what's legal. Perhaps lenient would be a better word?

Re:When it suits them...

[rainman_bc]

It's just a fact of history: the signature on a treaty is no stronger than the signing arm.

Which is exactly why the US completely disregards NAFTA - the framework they themselves helped build.

They only apply NAFTA as it suits them, not the other way around. The US is no different than China IMO.

Bargaining tactic

[Red Flayer]

FTA:"He [Liang Dong, VP of Marketing -- Baidu] was reported to have met several music company executives Wednesday to discuss copyright issues, the Standard cited a source as saying, adding the goal was to "cooperate and make a platform for legal music downloads."
Liang said the discussions were "positive.""

This is the recording industry leaning on Baidu to come to terms with them. I'll bet if Baidu puts methods of discouraging illegal filesharing in place, and encourages legal (read: revenue-producing) downloads, the lawsuits will be dropped or settled out of court for a pittance.

Same MO as the earlier article today about the RIAA possible dropping huge settlement demands against Grokster et al.

Re:When it suits them...

[Jherek Carnelian]

But with the looming US debt owed to China, how long before they say, "No, Yankee, we don't feel like it. What are you going to do about it" and grin the grin of one who knows they hold the other by the short hairs?

It is a two way street and will be for quite some time. China buys a lot of US bonds. But the US is China's largest market by far and for the forseeable future. They need the US to keep buying from them (remember the whole brohaha over most-favored-nation trading status). Additionally, China has a couple of looming problems - the double-digit economic growth rates are unstustainble for the long run, their economy will slow, at which point they will need the US market even more. Secondly, the one-child policy has produced a major age inversion - it is going to get harder to support the aging population with less able-bodied people entering the workforce than are retiring from it.

Over the past year, China has made a show of cracking down on flagrant IP violators. My impression (and that's all it is, an impression) is that big crackdowns have had no long-term effects on the 'market' as a whole.

This case is different in that Baidu is in the top-5 websites with the most page-hits in all of the world, I suspect that the Chinese goverment has "pride" in Baidu and a big punishment would be considered a loss of face. But, big show-punishments seems to be how they've handled similar complaints recently. So there is probably some level of internal conflict here. Just my occidental analysis of the situation.

And yet Google isn't [overvalued]?

Not the way Baidu is, see this analysis.

Re:No doubt, like everything - it's G.W.'s fault..

[bnenning]

Do you think the US is any different than China?

Yes. In many ways we're moving in the wrong direction, but we have quite a ways to go before we reach the level of the tyrants in Beijing.

And you Americans complain that the Chinese govt censors, but google does the same thing under the name of the DMCA.

No, that is not remotely close to the same thing. The DMCA sucks, but I can say that the DMCA sucks without being hauled away and shot by government stormtroopers.

Probably a bad move...

[tktk]

for the music industry. All Baidu has to do is frame the lawsuit as a bunch of multinational companies trying to beat up a homegrown Chinese company, (if it is one).

Bam...instant grassroots support for Baidu. Or whatever the grassroot equivalent is in a communist state.

What can these companies accomplish?

[beforewisdom]

Unless something has changed recently the Chinese government has no respect for intellectual property.

Do they really expect to successfully sue these people?

Imperialist Running Dogs Abusing Chinese Company

[Anonymous Coward]

Mao Tse Tung said one thing about how power flows. It is well to remind Imperialist lackey RIAA that they are all talk and have no Army or Navy or Air Force or Space Force. In fact, Imperialist RIAA and MPAA is not safe from Chinese version of Soviet KGB Spetznatz assassination units. Let the R I A A come to China and see how far they get...even how many steps they can take from their airplane when they arrive. Who is going to enforce a court order outside of China on Chinese interests in foreign countries when those countries themselves have vital properties in China and debts to China and even family in China. This is true of the Imperialist Lackey RIAA and MPAA as well. Who is going to have the stones to enforce the order of a foreign judge or 'arbiter' on a Chinese company in China. Just how many army groups will it take to reach, say, Nanking. How may Americans will be willing to die by the millions for the enrichment of the RIAA or MPAA