14 DAY TRIAL // Alibaba, the operator of Yahoo China, was sued by 11 companies for allowing users to listen and download 229 Chinese and English songs provided by the plaintiffs. It seems like the giant portal started to offer the free download on April 10, 2006, numerous users visiting the website looking for the songs. The lawsuit was filed at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, the 11 companies claiming 5.5 million yuan ($687.500) in damages for the copyright infringement.
"Eleven music companies, including Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group Corp, jointly filed a suit against Beijing-based Alibaba, operator of the Yahoo China Website, which provides online music downloading services. The 11 plaintiffs are claiming 5.5 million yuan (US$687,500) in total for their economic losses and requested that the court stop the defendant's copyright infringements. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court has accepted the lawsuit, according to Xinhua news agency," Shanghay Daily reported.
In the past, Yahoo encountered several lawsuits filed by other companies, the giant portal being accused for copyright infringement. The most known lawsuit was recently reported in Belgium where several publications sued Yahoo for using their articles without authorization. The Belgian newspapers criticized Yahoo News for publishing their content without their approval and sued the company to receive money from damages and remove the headlines from the page.
The same newspapers also sued Google for the same reason, claiming the search giant published information provided by them on the Google News service, although they didn't approve it. A Belgian judge ordered Google to remove all the headlines provided by the newspapers and to avoid publishing them in the future.
As you know, both giants, Google and Yahoo, tried to expand their products in the Asian market but it seems like nobody wants them in the country. After several departures and an internal reorganization recorded by the giant portal, Yahoo is now sued so I guess the Asian market is really anti-giants.