by CIO Staff

Yahoo China Sued for Copyright Violation by Music Site

News
Sep 15, 20062 mins
IT Leadership

A Chinese music site is suing Yahoo’s China unit for allegedly violating its copyright, Chinese media reported Friday.

Zhejiang province-based Entertainment Base, which claims to be China’s largest website for original music, sued Yahoo China in the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court over the copyright of 13 songs and is seeking 2.5 million renminbi (US$314,703) in damages, Shanghai’s Dongfang Morning News reported.

Entertainment Base Chief Executive Officer Wu Duanping claimed that his company spent a month gathering links to prove that Yahoo China offered illegal copies of the songs in question. He added that while it was technically very simple for the search engine to block illegal links to unlicensed music, Yahoo China had not done so.

“According to our intellectual property policy, as soon as we receive notification from a company of infringement we will remove all qualified links from our search results. We have already removed all qualified links requested by [Entertainment Base] and sent notification back to them that we had done so,” said a spokesperson for Alibaba.com by e-mail. Alibaba.com owns and operates Yahoo’s China unit.

Representatives from Entertainment Base could not be reached for comment.

-Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)

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