p2pnet.net News:- An ignominious defeat for the IFPI, owned by Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal, has left IFPI boss John Kennedy aghast and confused.

He was "amazed" by an "inexplicable judgement that is totally out of step with Chinese law," says Reuters.

To briefly digress, thousands of Chinese surfers now have Chinese search engine Baidu.com locked into in their systems, like it or not. And that, in turn, means Hewlett-Packard may in effect be helping some Netsters to violate Big Four Organized Music cartel copyrights —

— if Big Four claims are accurate, that is.

For a year, starting this October, Baidu will be included in all HP Pavilion and HP Presario series computers and, "We try to ensure a ubiquitous search service, and help users to get the information they need easily," said Baidu cto Jerry Liu at the time. "We are glad to collaborate with leading companies such as HP to provide users with the products and service they need."

Back to the story, Baidu.com has now been, "cleared of helping users to download music illegally in a case brought by some of the world’s largest music companies," says Reuters, going on:

"The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which estimates that about 85 percent of all music consumed in China is pirated, said it would appeal against the ruling and was confident it would be overturned."

The IFPI, "has also blasted Yahoo China’s search engine for providing links to Web sites that offer unlicensed music downloads," says Reuters.

"MP3 search is the primary boosting factor for Baidu’s high growth," said Beijing’s China Internet Network Information Center in 2005.

"Baidu’s major user group is students, which account for nearly 50% of Baidu users in Beijing," said the study.

Middle school students, "frequent MP3 searchers," accounted for more than 50% of Baidu’s student users in Beijing and also played, "a big role in Baidu’s market share enhancement in all the 3 cities surveyed".

However, Baidu dropped MP3 search and to further appease the Big Four, added a disclaimer say it "fights piracy" and promised to remove links to sites that infringe on copyrights.

Also See:
Reuters - China court rules for Baidu on downloading, November 15, 2006
will be included - Baidu.com teams with HP, July 25, 2006
primary boosting factor - Mp3s keep Baidu on top, September 6, 2005
further appease - Baido p2p ‘piracy fighter’ claim, October 27, 2006

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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.

Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.

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