Eleven music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, filed a lawsuit against Yahoo China for alleged copyright infringement by providing links to unlicensed music, an industry group said.
The suit, filed in January, was accepted by Beijing's Number 2 Intermediate Court on Tuesday, Leong May-seey, Asia-Pacific regional director for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said by telephone from Hong Kong yesterday. The IFPI represents companies such as Warner, Sony BMG, EMI Group PLC and Universal Music Group.
The case against Yahoo China comes about four months after Baidu.com Inc, operator of China's largest search engine, won a suit brought by music companies claiming the company allowed illegal song downloads on its Web site. About 85 percent of recordings in China are illegal, with sales of pirated music worth US$410 million in 2005, according to the federation.
"Yahoo China respects intellectual property rights and supports the fight against music piracy," Porter Erisman, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Alibaba.com Corp, which operates the Yahoo China site, wrote in an e-mail.
"The courts have clearly established the precedent that search-engine operators are not liable for content posted on third-party Web sites," Erisman said.
Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific, estimates that digital music, which includes music sold online and through mobile phones, accounts for 50 percent of China's music market.
"There are problems with the laws, and there needs to be progress before content businesses can be adequately compensated [in China]," Rutherford said by telephone from Hong Kong. "For Yahoo and all major brands operating in China, the rules you should apply in China are the rules you should apply anywhere else."
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