Baidu Sued for Piracy Ahead of IPO

Baidu.com, China’s biggest Internet search engine which is partly-owned by Google (and has just filed for its IPO in U.S.), is being sued by two local companies over alleged copyright infringement.

Beijing New Picture Film Co., copyright owner of “House of Flying Daggers,” filed a suit in June against Baidu for allowing users to download the movie for a fee. Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Co. also sued Baidu in June for allowing unauthorized downloads of 53 songs.

TechDirt: What’s not clear in any of this is how responsible Baidu really is. Is the complaint that the search engine simply leads to unauthorized files as people do a search, or is it actively participating in hosting and offering the files?

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