Music Group to Sue Yahoo China

A group of major music companies is preparing to sue Yahoo China over complaints that the search engine violates copyrights by linking to websites that offer pirated music, the group’s chairman said Tuesday.

“Yahoo China have been blatantly infringing our members’ rights,” said John Kennedy of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries. “We are taking the preliminary steps required by Chinese law for filing a lawsuit.”

The group says Yahoo China links to outside sites with unlicensed MP3 downloads of hundreds of songs. Yahoo China is operated by Alibaba.com Corp., which is 40% owned by Mountain View, Calif.-based Yahoo Inc. It is one of China’s most popular search engines, along with Baidu.com.

The federation could file its lawsuit within a few weeks, said Kennedy, who was in Beijing for meetings with government officials. The group represents more than 1,400 recording companies in 73 countries, including major U.S., European and Asian labels.

A spokesman for Yahoo China said the search engine was acting “within the law.”

“We respect intellectual property rights,” Porter Erisman said. “If someone sees something on our site that violates intellectual property rights, there is a process for removing it.”

Erisman said the firm was talking with music companies about creating a licensed music download system for China.

Kennedy wouldn’t say how much money the lawsuit would seek in damages. He said it also would request a court order to stop copyright infringement.

China is one of the world’s biggest sources of unlicensed copies of music, movies and software. But the government has been tightening enforcement under foreign pressure and to protect its own struggling music, movie and other creative industries, which say they face heavy losses from piracy.

A new Chinese law that took effect Saturday allows the government to fine online distributors of illegally copied music, movies or software.

Kennedy said the federation also was talking to Baidu.com Inc. about the search engine’s links to outside pirate websites but had not taken legal action.

Baidu.com responded to complaints last year by adding a disclaimer to its website saying it “fights piracy” and promised to remove links to sites that infringe copyrights. But the site continues to link to sites that the federation says offer unlicensed downloads.

The complaints come at time when Yahoo China also is defending itself against criticism by human rights activists for cooperating with the communist government’s efforts to censor the Internet. The company has provided the government with information about its e-mail users that activists say was used to convict at least three people on subversion charges.