One of China's top five search engines has been found guilty of copyright infringement for having one of those MP3 search services which are popular in China, but which piss off the record companies somewhat. The difference with this search engine – Zhongsou – is that rather than the infringement verdict coming from a civil lawsuit pursued by the record companies through the courts, the ruling has been made by the Copyright Bureau of the Hebei province, albeit following a complaint issued by the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry. The Bureau has ordered the web firm to stop providing the infringing service, and to pay a penalty of 100,000 Renminbi (about £7000).
Similar MP3 search services are offered by the market leader search engines in China, Baidu and Yahoo! China. It allows users to easily find illegal sources of music on the net, though the search companies originally claimed they themselves were not infringers because they didn't host any of the infringing content on their servers. The defence worked when the majors sued Baidu, but then the Chinese authorities clarified the country's digital copyright laws, and as a result the courts found in favour of the record companies when they sued Yahoo! China over their MP3 search facility. On the back of that the record companies have had the OK to launch new proceedings against Baidu.
The action taken by the Copyright Bureau against Zhongsou should make things easier for the record companies, taking some of the responsibility for bringing net firms in line out of their hands.
Commenting on the fine, IFPI Regional Director Asia Leong Mayseey told reporters: "We are pleased with the maximum fine imposed by the administrative authorities against Zhongsou's blatant and deliberate infringement of our members' copyright. This should send a signal to other similar infringing music services. 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. We cannot tolerate such abuse of our members' rights and other internet companies that are breaking the law should be warned that we are coming after them next".