Chinese Search Engine Baidu In Illegal Music Download Battle

China’s biggest search engine, Baidu.com, was today in the first day of mediation in a copyright trial brought against the company by seven global music corporations. The music companies (including Warner, Universal, EMI, and Sony BMG) allege that the search engine provided links to sites that allows users to illegally download music. The search engine Baidu has of course stated that their service does not provide the illegal downloads, but merely points users towards the illegal sites. In an attempt to come to a mutually beneficial resolution, Baidu has agreed to proceed with mediation, if the mediation however is not successful then the case will go to trial. MP3 searching accounts for 22% of Baidu’s traffic. Netease, another of China’s major search engines recently stopped their MP3 search facilities in order to curtail similar legal action against them.