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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?"
This round? Probably something in spirit in favor of the RIAA, but still not as well enforced or as speedily as they would like. Not as fast as, say a tune with the lyrics like "Taiwan Independence Day, Hooray!" or "Falun Gong, get it on", where everyone would remark at the swiftness and finality of their enforcement.
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?
China has a track record of honoring treaties and peace when they have larger goals in sight. Once they have achieved those goals... The West will see how much they really care what the rest of the world has to say and tell it what opinion it should share of the great PRC.
They're patient, they've put up with hundreds of years of crap and they know it. Has the West forgotten?
There has been a growing concern among investors over the company's prospects. Its shares dropped 28 percent in New York Wednesday after two analysts warned the stock was seriously overvalued.
And yet Google isn't?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now they're going to have to stick to buying DVDs for a dollar on the streets.
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.
There be no treasure here, matey! Arrrr. If tis pirates they seek, tis pirates they find in these high seas. Arrrr.
The land lubbers be afterrr us for piracy, but I swear on my right eyepatch that we be faring better than the fate of walking the plank. Arrrrr.
Baidu be giving treasure maps to this here loot and booty (points with hook hand) but for all the enterprising yellowbeards, we have ways to bury our pirate gold. Arrrr.
"Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit."
-- Redemption Song (Bob Marley)
"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.Bradley Holt
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?
I always wondered when I added 'filetype:mp3' to my search why Google yielded zero results. Is this a copyright thing?
-Valiss