[Infowarrior] - Music industry prepares lawsuit against Yahoo China

[Richard Forno]

Music industry prepares lawsuit against Yahoo China
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400
463_pf.html

Reuters
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; 12:02 PM

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's biggest music companies are preparing a
lawsuit against Yahoo China for copyright infringement as part of the
industry's efforts to crack down on piracy.

"Yahoo China has been blatantly infringing our members' rights. We have
started the process and as far as we're concerned we're on the track to
litigation," said John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the music
industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry.

"If negotiation can prevent that, so be it," he added.

Yahoo China officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Yahoo China is a partnership between Internet giant Yahoo Inc, which owns 40
percent of the business, and China's Alibaba.com. The IFPI has blasted Yahoo
China's search engine for providing links to Web sites that offer unlicensed
music downloads.

In a speech in Shanghai in May, Kennedy said China was the most exciting new
market in the world for the music industry but that online piracy "threatens
to strangle the fledgling legitimate digital music market before it has
hardly evolved."

The IFPI estimates that about 85 percent of all music consumed in China is
pirated.

Kennedy singled out Yahoo China and Chinese Internet search leader
Baidu.com, which was ordered by a Beijing judge last year to stop directing
users to music download sites.

The music industry has relied on an anti-piracy strategy of lawsuits against
illegal music services and their users paired with growth in legal music
services like Apple's market-leading iTunes Music Store. The UK music trade
group BPI is currently suing the Russian Web site AllofMP3.com.
© 2006 Reuters