Beijing - A Chinese court has agreed to hear two multi-million dollar copyright infringement claims brought by major record labels against Chinese search engine Baidu, and Web portal Sohu and its Sogou media search engine, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The Beijing Intermediate People's Court will hear a $9 million claim against Baidu brought by Universal Music Group, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG), who will argue that the search engine aids copyright infringement by providing "deep links" to unauthorized downloads on third-party sites.

"The claim is the tip of the iceberg in a copyright infringement test-case that could expose the Chinese internet giant to a multi-billion dollar liability," the IFPI said in a statement, adding that the current claim covers just 127 tracks -- "a small representative sample of the wider infringement."

The same three major labels, along with local company Gold Label Entertainment, have also filed for $7.5 million in damages against Sohu and Sogou.

"The scale of what it is doing can be summed up by the fact that if the courts were to rule that Baidu should pay maximum statutory damages for all the infringing tracks available through its service it would have to pay many billions of dollars in compensation," said IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy.

"That would be an enormous but appropriate price to pay for a company that is failing to take what are quite simple steps to respect the rights of artists and record companies and protect the content of IFPI's members."

The IFPI claims that "over 99 per cent of all music online in China infringes copyright."

Related Links:
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20080407.html

http://www.baidu.com

http://www.sohu.com