Record Industry Targets Chinese Piracy With New Suits

Posted by Eriq Gardner

Three major record labels are hoping that new, stronger intellectual property laws in China will give them better results in fighting rampant copyright abuse there.

Universal Music, Sony BMG and Warner Music have filed a lawsuit against Chinese search providers Baidu, Sohu.com and Yahoo China for failure to remove "deep links" to unauthorized music files.

The lawsuits follow a long legal campaign where the the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry got the Beijing Higher People's Court to confirm in December that the companies had violated copyright law. However, in January, a Beijing appeals court found the Chinese online search giant not guilty of copyright infringement and refused to suspend Baidu's music download service.

The IFPI hopes that new rules in China change this situation, saying this week's lawsuit follows ""months of fruitless negotiations."