Music Ally

Chinese search giant Baidu has been found guilty of copyright infringement for providing unauthorised links to lyrics in its Baidu MP3 Lyrics search service. The case was brought by Chinese publisher MCSC which found 50 of its songs available on the service. According to local reports, Beijing People’s Court, Haidian district ordered that Baidu remove the links and pay 50,000 Yuan (GBP £4,750 or USD $7,300) plus 10,000 Yuan (£950) for litigation expenses.

While Baidu is expected to appeal, the case is nevertheless a notable step by the Chinese courts to assert the validity of copyright in the country. Baidu is China’s biggest search engine with over 60% market share; and also operates the largest online music service in the country, providing links to MP3 files hosted elsewhere on the net. Since the Baidu MP3 Search service links to music files on the web the company claims that it is not infringing copyright as it is not actually hosting the files. This claim was contested by the IFPI which fought a legal battle against Baidu but uiltimately lost in January this year when the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that linking to content does not constitute infringement.

The ruling against the IFPI appeared to be a huge blow against advocates of stronger intellectual property protection in China; but some observers have suggested that rather than proving that the Chinese courts are not sympathetic to copyright concerns, it instead suggests that the IFPI failed to bring a proper case.

This latest ruling in favour of a local music publisher certainly indicates that music rights owners in China can be heard; and it’s not the first time that Baidu has been slapped down by the courts. In 2005  Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Company, an affiliate of EMI, won an infringement case against Baidu’s MP3 Search feature. However, at the time press reports suggested that the MP3 Search feature may be disabled as a result, but Baidu continued regardless. It’s not yet clear whether this latest legal ruling will have any discernable effect on the search engine’s claim that linking to content is fine; or whether it marks a small but significant turning point in the way the Chinese courts are prepared to back rightsholders.

We noticed a funny thing today when browsing our RSS feed of new iPhone music apps. A company called Apptism has released a bunch of apps called ‘Sing Along With…’, except not with the actual artist names in the app title. They offer collections of lyrics from the stars’ back catalogues.

For example, ‘Sing Along With the Canadian Country Star’ has loads of Shania Twain lyrics. Others include:

‘Sing along with the Caribbean Queen’ (Rihanna)
‘Sing along with the Genesis star’ (Phil Collins)
‘Sing along with Curly and the boys’ (N-Sync – we like this title especially)
‘Sing along with the Poker Face singer’ (Lady Gaga)
‘Sing along with the ‘Rockstar’ band’ (Nickelback)

And so on. The correct band/singer names are all in the App Store blurbs for these apps, it’s just the titles they’ve been not-so hidden in. Whether this is a cunning plan to avoid the copyright police is unclear – the app blurbs make it clear that they’re not officially connected (and thus presumably not officially licensed) with the artists.

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Sony Music has revealed that it will pump up its artist websites by adding audio streaming and song lyrics to sites for acts including Britney Spears, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Michael Jackson. The new strategy, rolling out from early summer, is based around a “new Sony Music audio player” which allows (more…)