Beijing - Zhongsou, one of the top five search engines in China, has been found guilty of copyright infringement and ordered to pay record labels over $14,000 in damages, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a record label trade group.

The Copyright Bureau of Heibei province and Cangzhou city have also confiscated three servers belonging to Zhongsou.

The IFPI says Zhongsou was running a music delivery service similar to those offered by Yahoo China and Baidu, the country's largest search engine, adding that "this type of service has already been ruled to infringe copyright by Chinese civil courts in December 2007."

"China has the potential to be one of the most dynamic digital music markets in the world, but legal services cannot compete when household names like Zhongsou deliberately break the law, abuse the rights of others and seek to drive advertising revenue by providing illegal content," said Leong Mayseey, regional director of IFPI Asia.

Related Links:
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20080521.html

http://mp3.zhongsou.com