Publisher sues Baidu for literature piracy
- Source: Global Times
- [04:48 December 18 2009]
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By Yin Hang
Shanda Literature Limited (SDL) announced Thursday that it would bring a lawsuit against Baidu, the leading local search engine, and demand millions of yuan in compensation for intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement against five of its most popular online novels at the beginning of next month.
SDL, which leads China's wireless reading-content business, claimed that the search engine provides millions of links to pirated versions of its online novels.
Typing the title of one of its top 10 most-popular novels, such as "Po Cang Qiong" (Breaking Heaven), into the Baidu search bar, only one licensed link appears, with the other 9 million links providing pirated content of the novel, SDL said.
Similar search results were returned for the publisher's other novels.
Baidu is also accused of providing pirated content of SDL's books on its site tieba.baidu. com, an online forum.
"We have informed Baidu nine times, in letters, calls and with other measures, that they are using pirated content in their services, but we were ignored by them and the pirated content remains available," said Hou Xiaoqiang, CEO of the SDL.
Baidu could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Chinese Writers Association Vice President Zhang Kangkang supported the lawsuit.
