15 November 2013Copyright

Baidu facing multi-million dollar lawsuit for alleged copyright infringement

A group of Chinese companies have joined forces to issue search-engine Baidu with a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which has been pursued by a group of China's biggest online content providers, including Sohu, Tencent, LeTV and Youku Tudou, calls for damages stretching to around RMB 300 million ($49.2 million).

Together, the companies form the Joint Action Against Online Video Piracy in China, which also includes US organisation The Motion Picture Association of America.

On Wednesday November 13, it announced a declaration in capital-city Beijing, and promised to fight online piracy both on computers and mobile phones.

The group claims Baidu, alongside technology firm QVOD, which runs a video player that allows streaming from the Internet, is providing access to pirated videos by using software to obtain it from other sources.

"Baidu is distributing content without authorisation while engaging in activities that are beyond the scope of a search engine,” the group said in a statement.

“Via hotlinks, users are able to access content hosted on third party sites. Such content can be viewed using Baidu video applications while Baidu takes advantage of licensed content, storage and bandwidth of third party video sites."

Victor Koo, chairman of China’s largest video-content website Youku Tudou, said in a statement he hoped more people, “together, with government, authorities and copyright holders,” would join in the campaign and “strengthen cooperation … combat piracy, and jointly promote the process of genuine networks."

Earlier this month WIPR reported that Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, shut down its newly-launched online shopping mall after only 24-hours amid fears of copyright infringement.

Baidu could not be reached for comment at the time of writing, however, according to reports in China, it responded to the issue in a statement posted on its Sina Weibo account, the Chinese equivalent of microblogging website Twitter.

"Baidu Video has always attached great importance to copyright protection in the video industry," the posting said.

“Since the beginning of last year, the company has taken many measures against piracy, including an automatic screening system to eliminate pirated videos, a platform to receive complaints about piracy and refusing to recommend pirated videos to users.”

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