Is Baidu A Pirate?

By Christopher Nickson
June 05, 2008

Representatives from the music industry have filed suit against Chinese search giant Baidu and now they're encouraging advertisers to boycott the site.

Earlier in 2008 the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) filed a copyright lawsuit against Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, to the tune of $9 million.

Now they’ve gone a step further, and along with the Music Copyright Society of China and the newly-minted China Audio-Video Copyright Association they’re trying to hit Baidu in the wallet by encouraging advertisers to boycott the site.

The music industry reps claimed Baidu is the largest source of pirated music in China – quite a claim when they admit that about 80% of the total music revenue goes to pirates.

Baidu doe have a music search engine, with a link from its home page. However, the music files are all on third-party servers, none of which ...

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