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Baidu Sued for Piracy on Eve of IPO 164

Posted by timothy from the little-backrooms-in-copymart dept.
sentanta writes "With an IPO set for Thursday, Baidu.com 'the Chinese Google' was hit with a lawsuit alleging piracy by the makers of The House Of Flying Daggers. The search engine currently has the largest market share in China (Google also owns about 3% of the company), and it is looking to raise ~$100mm from its IPO. This might become the first high profile test of an anti-piracy law passed by China last December, which punishes offenders with up to 7 years in prison."
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Baidu Sued for Piracy on Eve of IPO More

Baidu Sued for Piracy on Eve of IPO

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  • It is a bit more severe there if you get caught apparently. Anyway, the 7 years prison do not seem to be really worrying for most chinese since you can still buy ultra cheap copied (or originals printed at "night") on every streetcorner.
    • mp3.baidu.com or just Baidu.com lists MP3s right at the top. I am really surprised this hasn't happened earlier. It would seem that Google would be very careful about it's relationship to a company who has music piracy on it's main menu. I don't know a whole lot about international law, but I've heard "Affirmatively seeking to do business in location X" is a key phrase that allows the law to jump state borders for liability etc. I wouldn't be surprised if it is patterned off of internationally accepted l
      • Finally a good MP3 search engine I would say (-:. A search engine which is a very automated process, is hard to control on content, but yes, you could see it as a mistake, the problem however is not that they list it, but that they apparently offered it as a paid download service (-:. That is clearly over the line of what is acceptable.

    • It is a bit more severe there if you get caught apparently.

      No, the USA DMCA can put you away for ten years.

      • 10 years in a US prison vs 1 week in a Chinese prison... which one would YOU take?
        • Is this a trick question or something? Prison is prison, it's no picnic in the US. You'd be a real idiot to choose 10 years in US prison over 1 week in Chinese prison.
          • Yeah, no kidding.. I'm continually amazed at just how ignorant people are about US prisons. Total hell-hole. Definitely a '5th column' against the psyche of the average American.

            • yes but 10 in US vs 7 in china?
              I'll take the US.
              -nB

        • 10 years in a US prison vs 1 week in a Chinese prison... which one would YOU take?

          Getting gang raped daily for 10 years vs. getting my kidney stolen ? That is a pretty tough choice...

          Actually, I think I'll stay in Europe. This might be neither communist nor capitalist utopia, and massive unemployment and chronic shortage of public funds might be permanent features of our economies as a result, but I can live with that, much better than I could live without my kidneys or anal virginity.

      • Ok, more than I thought. But as a company CEO it is harder to be put away in the US since the evidence has to be more direct. In China they take a bit lighter approach to that (for example human rights problems in China). In this case though, it could be pretty easy even in the US to find the CEO guilty of wrongdoing by allowing a paid service (not proven yet, but the article seems pretty clear on that).
    • We're talking death penalty harshly. DON'T get caught by some provincial rube who doesn't know, or want to hear, or know and not care, about the difference between copying bits and putting people into a watery grave, after robbing them of everything else. (Now you know why the penalties for piracy are so harsh.)
    • The penalty for piracy in China mainly applies to those who mass produce the thousands of cheap DVDs you buy on the street corner.
        The vendors and their customers are not prosecuted. Come to think of it, in most cases, the pirates (those who steal 35 mm film/ dvd screeners etc and make them by the millions) don't get punished either... usually it's a fine, and some equipment confiscated.

  • If Google gets sued (by China??) then who gets the 7 years in prison??
    • If Google gets sued (by China??) then who gets the 7 years in prison??

      Everyone who dares to say anything bad about the Chinese government.
    • I don't think minority shareholders are going to jail over this...
    • If Google gets sued (by China??) then who gets the 7 years in prison??

      New post at Google Jobs!

      Are you bored of the drudgery of paying your living costs? Are you tired of having to come home every night from a hard day at the office, only to have to cook your own meals. Ever dreamed of travelling to exciting new countries and seeing different cultures? If so, Google might have the job for you. Google Scapegoat(TM) is a new projet initiative they are developing to strengthen ties in China. We are looking fo
    • Noone gets to go to prison.
      That's what Limited corporations are all about. If a corporation gets sued, shareholders are not liable for any action of the company, be it illegal or not. Actually that works for management too.

      • If a corporation gets sued, shareholders are not liable for any action of the company, be it illegal or not. Actually that works for management too.

        I can understand why a limited corporation would shield its shareholders. But why does it shield the company's directors and top executives?

        • So if my corporation goes bust, you can't come and sue the living pants off of me, the CEO. There are positive and negative aspects of this mindset. It is, overall a good mindset. Now, there is nothing to say that other laws can't have the CEO prosecuted for negligence.

          The person/people who will go to jail (in China) are probably those who gave the orders. So the minimum wage guy who copied the disks won't go to jail....but his bosses boss who had the bright idea to do this will.

          Now the Corporation
  • Can anyone here tell me what Baidu.com is actually like as a search engine, in terms of quality and accuracy of results, compared to Google and Yahoo? Why is it popular? I'm really curious.
    • Can anyone here tell me what Baidu.com is actually like as a search engine

      It looks a lot like this. http://www.baidu.com/ [baidu.com].
    • Quite nice actually, I'm viewing it in IE6 from my PC at work, and its very similar to Google, although I don't have appropriate fonts installed so most of the search results look like matrix code. When you click on a result, the link is opened in a new window - I don't know if this behaviour can be configured (can't read matrix code).

      • (can't read matrix code)

        My Linux box can, running Firefox. The site represents all the chinese characters fine. Although I don't have the relevant language knowledge installed (can't read Chinese) so it doesn't really help. :(
        • But ignorance is vincible. Its stupidity that 'in-'.

          I did a search on 'oligodendrocites and remyelination' (I have MS so I'm interested, okay?) and it found things that were actually relevant.

          It was extremely strange reading the page's "summary" in English, presumably that was what was searched through, and facing a page in Chinese (on another tab) when I clicked through the page reference on the search results.

          Now I gotta learn Chinese (well enough to read what I want to read.)

          Kewl. Ignorance as a motivato
          • I ran an identical search through google and got a single ad for 'Myein Repair Research'.

            The Bandu one had a few, including an ad for Dell (in RMB, but still Dell.) This had absolutely nothing to do with my search.

            Bandu has a while to go to catch up.
    • Speaking from experience, Baidu's by far the best search engine for personal sites & blogs in China.

      For instance if I want to search for a catch phrase that has became popular recently (think Chinese version of "imagine a beowulf cluster of..." ) I'd have much better chance of finding something relevant with Baidu than with Google or godforbid MSN search.

      Baidu sucks for foreign site search / non Chinese phrase search tho.

      And no, they don't host files, so I don't have a clue as to how a search engine can
      • And no, they don't host files, so I don't have a clue as to how a search engine can get sued for movie piracy.

        Wasn't there a guy found guilty recently in Australia who was linking to MP3 files hosted elsewhere? His site was specific to finding free mp3 files, but it is a short leap from that to saying that the link is the file

      • Baidu.com always return some commercial website, like a B2B website or an online retailing site, as their 1st hit.
    • I haven't looked at it, but how much would it take to trump up a website, submit a story on slashdot over it, then do an IPO on it?
    • Wow, comparing Baidu to the real Chinese Google here:

      Baidu [bandwidthmonkey.net] Google China [bandwidthmonkey.net]

      Look at the numbers: 28,300 compared to a measly 177 found on Google China.
  • On first glance, the Baidu site looks like a very spartan search engine, but the links at the top lead to a much more involved "portal" website more akin to Yahoo! than Google. If the site was allowing downloads of the movie and music in question, then this lawsuit will likely go ahead. I'm not too clear on Chinese securities law, but I wasn't aware that a company that was caught in illegal activity could be prevented from selling stock.

    From a friend, I have heard that doing business in China is rife with

    • This case, if successfully prosecuted, will send a strong message to the West that foreign investments are safe in China.

      But how is it that Baidu are deemed responsible for the IP infringement? It's just a search engine! The article is a little light on details regarding this. Perhaps it would not be so good if this case is succesfully prosecuted.

      • But how is it that Baidu are deemed responsible for the IP infringement? It's just a search engine

        According to TFA: "Beijing New Picture Film Co., copyright owner of ``House of Flying Daggers,'' filed suit last month against Baidu for allowing users to download the movie for a fee". So their MP3 search and similar free services are nothing to do with this case. They were allegedly actually selling illegal downloads.

    • Yes, it is very difficult to enforce your IP rights in China, in fact it is hard to do legitimate business in general b/c you're constantly competing against entities who pull weird shit. The morals that should accompany capitalism haven't followed China's developing capitalist economy. (Yes, it is growing towards capitalism.) So, you have restauarant owners who are willing to poison their neighbors' restaurant to kill their business, and end up killing 50 people in the process.

      A similar state occurred
      • The morals that should accompany capitalism haven't followed China's developing capitalist economy. That is the single most hilarious statement I have EVER read. Right...capitalism leads to honest business practices, that's exactly why we don't have monopolies or a poisoned environment from big businesses or a business run government selling poison as medicine or thousands of soldiers dying each day for a businesss man's oil company...We sure do live in a moral nation!
      • Most U.S. limits on, er, questionable business practices stem from a populist backlash in the early 20th century. I see no way for a populist movement to form under China's political system without a general revolution.
  • Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem rather exorbitant to value the stock of a web company at 192 million (If my math is correct - based on the 5% that google bought)... especially when they only made 1.5 million profit?

    It's possible that other companies have such low profit margins vs. value and I just haven't noticed it - but the company being a website generating ad revenue makes it seem all the more overpriced.

    When will technology come back to earth (aka reasonable prices and profit margins)

  • Interesting how the Google icon gets put away for negative stories....

    Since many companies try to lay-low during IPO time this is shore to make for interesting times for them.

    __
    168 more Funny Video Clips [laughdaily.com]

    • Re:Yah... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BarryNorton ( 778694 )
      Google only owns "about 3% of the company" - do you think everything that IBM or Microsoft have a minority investment in (lots!) should be tagged with their logos?
    • How come the Google icon gets put away for negative stories that aren't about Google? I want a google icon on every story with a search engine or and advertiser in it or if it's about computers! It's a conspiracy god damn it!
    • In case reading comprehension is beyond you, This is NOT a google story, this is a story about a company Baidu, the fact that Google has 3 percent of their stock really doesn't matter much and is purely a side note.

      Baidu might just have screwed their IPO big time, or rather the makers of House of Flying Dagger's owners did. Either way they will not make out like Google's founder's did. Oh well better luck next time.
  • Does anyone "get" the gist of the complaint? I can't see how a search engine gets busted for piracy. It isn't like the search engine company is providing you copies of movies illegally. Please enlighten me.
    • while IANAL, I suppose they could argue along similar grounds as the case against Napster. A centralised system that points to the sources. Not content holding but strongly aiding in the distribution.
    • Does anyone "get" the gist of the complaint?

      I did. R T F A.

      • I RTFA and didnt get it. If its a search engine, then how is it that they are offering downloads of copywritten material for a fee? IS this a addon to there site somewhere? Did google really invest in a website that offers illigal downloads for a fee? TFA only offers 1 quote from a source with the Plaintif, and doesnt go in depth at all.
        • I RTFA and didnt get it. If its a search engine, then how is it that they are offering downloads of copywritten material for a fee?

          Having a search engine doesn't preclude them from doing other business. Most search engines have a portal to pages selling stuff.

  • and this is what you get [imageshack.us].

    The first search term I used was freedom and lots of hits were found. When searching for "democracy", however, it just outright spit out that dialog box. Interesting.
  • baidu = hundred degrees.
    bai = hundred / du = degrees

    ling = zeroes

    bailing = hundred zeroes which is the definition of googal. ;p

    anyway, linkified for the lazy:
    http://baidu.com/ [baidu.com]
    • As your different spelling indicated, google has no meaning. But it's actually googol, not googal. Seconding, "bailing" still means one hundred. The ling is used if there is a 0 in the middle of a number, for instance 105, which is "bai ling wu", so there is no confusion with 150. One hundred zeros would be "bai ge ling", "ge" being a measure-word for numbers. We don't have an equivalent measure-word in English for numbers, but we do sometimes have measure words for other things. For example, "two cup
  • I'm sure that Adam is pissed!
  • I can't find a "submit your site" entry in the random mishmash that is Baidu via Babelfish. Is there any way to submit a site to them for inclusion/spidering? There a whole lot of chinese eyeballs in the world...
    • I can't find a "submit your site" entry in the random mishmash that is Baidu via Babelfish. Is there any way to submit a site to them for inclusion/spidering? There a whole lot of chinese eyeballs in the world...
      If they haven't found your site yet, just wait, they'll get to it as long as people are linking to you. Be careful what you ask for, though; the "BaiDu Spider" tends to hit sites hard and fast when it does come knocking.
  • Doing a search under the "MP3" [baidu.com] secion of the web site for Metallica, it appears that you have all sorts of items [baidu.com] for your downloading pleasure.

    Anyways, FTA:

    Beijing New Picture Film Co., copyright owner of ``House of Flying Daggers,'' filed suit last month against Baidu for allowing users to download the movie for a fee...

    So what they're saying is, they should've let them download it for free, right?

    • Wow, massive direct download linking. I seached for a U2 song under mp3 and it took me right to 20+ direct download links. Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with this...
  • This story seems to me a bit of an understatement. I have only known Baidu as a source of pirated material, specifically mp3.baidu.com [baidu.com] which is a search engine for any kind of music, kind of like a Chinese Napster.
    Knowing this I was a bit suprised to hear Google is a shareholder for this company. Actually, most Chinese websites contain pirated material, for example, the university where I work has movies and mp3s right on their website for anyone's enjoyment! Also, almost every city has a local website
  • What the hell is $100mm? Is it supposed to be $100M?

    Are the stories posted by monkeys trained to look for keywords like "Google," and press the big red "Post" button, bypassing any sort proofreading?
    • Those are metric dollars.

    • "What the hell is $100mm? Is it supposed to be $100M?"

      No, but perhaps $100MM would be more accurate.

      M = a thousand

      MM = a million

      In this style of notation, M stands for the Latin root for "thousand." It's also where we get Roman numerals.

      I interchangeably use "MM" and "mm" in emails, but "MM" is probably correct.

    • The "mm" notation is used in traditional accounting and banking to signify 1 million. Therefore $100mm is $100,000,000. $100m would be $100,000.

      I think it's more common for Europeans to use this notation day to day as most Americans seem to be unaware of it.

  • Baidu forgot to send their monthly bribe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jjn1056 ( 85209 ) <jjn1056&yahoo,com> on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @11:11AM (#13231205) Homepage Journal
    After living in China for 2 years I can assure you that the only reason that is lawsuit is going forward is because 1) Someone at Baidu forgot to pay the monthly bribe to the goverment for protection or 2) someone was able to bribe the goverment with more money to allow the suit to go forward.

    Honestly, my DSL service in China links straight to a movie download service. They are hundreds of movies and games that are all pirated versions and this is coming from the gov't run DSL service. Then there are the 4 stores selling pirated DVD's within sight of the local police station. So there is no way anyone in the gov't really cares about this issue right now. They are just posturing for the WTO. Maybe in the future.

    • > reason that is lawsuit is going forward is because...

      Let's not forget it was a crappy film, too - as a rip-off of _Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon_, with its colours over-saturated to point of luridity and missing a 'cello accompaniment, it should never have been spawned. So a lawsuit is *one* way to attempt to raise publicity. (Appearing on /. would be another. ;)
  • Is that one hundred mega-million dollars? or one hundred millimeter dollars?

    Man, metrics mess with my head

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