China's leading search engine, Baidu.com, has won the latest stage of its legal fight with the major record companies.
As previously reported, the majors accused the search engine of copyright violation because of a service which enabled users to specifically search for MP3 content. Such searches would provide links to both legit and non-legit music sources online, and it was the latter that worried the record labels. They said that, through the service, Baidu.com was aiding the illegal distribution of music over the net, and was therefore guilty of copyright infringement.
Despite an earlier ruling in which Baidu was ordered to pay EMI 68,000 yuan (£8,400) in compensation for enabling such infringement, the latest court hearing sided with the search engine, which claimed that because it does not host any MP3 content itself it could not be guilty of infringement. Baidu bosses also argued that its MP3 search facility was no different than other content specific searches, such as photo or news story searches, that are offered by Baidu and many other search engines.
Baidu welcomed the latest court decision, which overturns the EMI ruling. A spokesman told the Xinhua news agency: "If the music companies had won, the whole search engine sector would have ground to a halt". Nevertheless, the record companies are expected to appeal.