Industry body the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry (IFPI) has begun legal proceedings against the search and
portal company in the Chinese courts after asking the company to
take the action last April. The IFPI represents all the major music
labels, including EMI, Sony-BMG and Warner Music.
"Yahoo! China has been blatantly infringing our members’
rights," said IFPI chief executive John Kennedy. "We have started
the process and as far as we're concerned we're on the track to
litigation. If negotiation can prevent that, so be it."
The case will claim that by providing links to sites hosting
copyright infringing music downloads, Yahoo! China is acting
illegally. IFPI has already taken similar action against ISP
Baidu.
"Yahoo! China is an mp3 link site which is infringing IFPI
member companies' rights on a large scale by making available
copyrighted songs for download from its service without any
permission from the record companies," said an IFPI statement.
"In April 2006 IFPI wrote to Yahoo! China on behalf of its
member record companies, asking it to take the necessary steps to
stop the infringement of IFPI members' rights. To date IFPI
has received no acceptable response. IFPI is taking the
preliminary steps required by Chinese law for filing a lawsuit,"
said the statement.
Yahoo! told OUT-LAW that Yahoo! China is operated and managed by
Alibaba.com. No one at Alibaba was available for comment before
going to press.
Speaking at the China International Forum on the Audio Visual
Industry in Shanghai in June, IFPI's Kennedy said that 90% of
recordings in China infringe copyright, and that the illegal music
market there is worth £216 million.
At that event he seemed to signpost this week's action. "I have
been very disappointed in recent months to see some well-known
brand names among the internet companies blatantly infringing our
members' rights," he said. "Baidu has already been found guilty of
copyright infringement in the Chinese courts; China-Yahoo! is now
in a similar position, choosing to turn a blind eye to the
infringements taking place on its service instead of setting the
example of responsible practice which we would expect from
them."
"We are watching China-Yahoo! closely and will have no
hesitating in acting to protect our members' rights if we should
have to," he said.
Kennedy told Bloomberg News that he was not sure what damages
the IFPI would look for in the courts, but that if the case were in
the US they "would certainly run into tens of millions and perhaps
even more than that".
