14 DAY TRIAL // The counter-offensive that the IFPI have started against piracy lacks some coordination, as far as I'm concerned. It's going after everybody at the same time, suing across continents and taking the battle to everybody's field. At the same time, I'm afraid that they're entering the battleground too late, just like Napoleon, and we know what good it did him.
Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd have come together under IFPI council and decided to go to a Beijing court in order to stop China's biggest search engine from displaying links to music delivery services that infringe copyrights they hold. Another company targeted by the three is media firm Sohu.com and its search engine, Sogou.
China is a disastrous move for the music industry giants, according to IFPI, more than 99 percent of all the music files circling China are pirated and the 76-million-dollar legitimate music market accounts for less than 1 percent of the music sales recorded on a global level, Reuters mentions.
December had Yahoo! China face a similar lawsuit that it lost, but so far the search engine owned by the Sunnyvale-based mother company has refused to comply with the ruling. As a result, it now faces proceedings for the same violation of Chinese law by committing mass copyright infringement. "The music industry in China wants partnership with the technology companies - but you cannot build partnership on the basis of systemic theft of copyrighted music and that is why we have been forced to take further actions," said at the time John Kennedy, IFPI CEO.
No official statements were made public from any of the companies involved, or from the court officials involved in the case. There's probably going to be a crushing verdict that might hinder Baidu's plans of moving to Japan.