Record industry beats up Yahoo in China
21 Dec 2007 | 10:46 GMT
Can't search for torrents
THE INTERNATIONAL Federation of Phonographic Industries claims it has stopped Yahoo from searching for torrent files, at least in China.
According to AP, the body took Yahoo's China operation to court for helping online music pirates. The basis of the complaint was that Yahoo was allowing users to find pirated material.
It says a Beijing appeals court on upheld an April ruling against Yahoo China over its search engine's links to outside Web sites that carried illegally copied music.
Yahoo's China partners say they have not seen the ruling, although a company spokesman said Yahoo was hoping to reach an agreement with music companies to create a licensed download service.
The move is seen as part of the recording and movie industry's attempts to reign in the huge piracy market in China.
Yahoo was appealing a Beijing Intermediate People's Court ruling that Yahoo China facilitated the infringement of copyrights. It had to pay $27,000 in damages.
Yahoo argued that search engines should not be liable for content on outside web sites. That appeal was rejected by the Beijing Higher People's Court, the IFPI said. µ
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