Recording Industry Tries Suing Another Chinese Search Engine, Despite Losing Last Suit

from the try,-try-again dept

Wed, Mar 7th 2007 3:09am — Mike Masnick

If you have to give the recording industry credit for something, you can say that it's persistent in its misguided attempts to sue just about anyone. Setbacks don't seem to ever be analyzed, but simply ignored. For example, in 2005, the recording industry sued Chinese search engine Baidu for helping people find unauthorized copies of music -- which has been credited for a large chunk of Baidu's appeal to users. However, late last year, the courts found against the recording industry and in favor of Baidu. Apparently, the folks in the industry didn't bother to think about why, they just turned around and filed a similar lawsuit against Alibaba, a competitor to Baidu, who also happens to run Yahoo China.

The worst part about this, though, is that if the recording industry ever stopped to look at what's actually happening in China, they might see all of the opportunities presented there. After all, China is famous for its rather lax views on intellectual property -- which, if you believed the recording industry and its supporters, should have killed off the local music industry. However, the reality is quite different. Musicians in China have learned to adapt to the marketplace, embracing the free promotional aspects of their music to help them sell other things. Knowing that the music itself will be available for free, many musicians encourage that, recognizing that it helps them sell many more concert tickets, and also has opened up new money making opportunities, such as sponsorship deals. Of course, the record labels generally doesn't get money from concerts and such -- but that was a (bad) business mistake they made in their contracts, rather than a larger issue that requires government protection.

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8 Comments

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magicdiablo, 7 Mar 2007 @ 4:50am

just stop
The recording industry does have ligiment claims (i'm defending them. eww), but they need to review all the facts before they can go on a suing rampage.
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Nobody Special, 7 Mar 2007 @ 5:25am

check the contracts
I don't know about in China, but in the US the recording industry often makes more money then the artist on concert tours.

I suspect that one would find that in China the recording industry only makes money doing the recording. Where in the US the industry has expanded its reach and used to have a solid grip on all aspects of an artist's career. And it is quite normal for organizations to fight to protect what they already have.

At this point they are most likely trying to recover something from the volumes of pirated material in China. That , and they are protecting their IP. The thing is that if you don't make adequate moves to protect your IP, you lose protection altogether.

Whether this suit is a good choice is a business decision really. And one factor (among others) is how much does the suit cost. But the legal beavers are also certainly trying to avoid whatever made them lose the last round. In the legal arena it is a mistake to focus on what is right instead of what is legal. And legality is often won and lost on technicalities. And technicalities can often be overcome with persistence.

Finally, it might be possible that they are now banded together with their last foe to cause distraction from the competition. They certainly wouldn't disclose such any more then absolutely required.
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Geoff, 7 Mar 2007 @ 6:44am

a waste of time
Although I'm a musician and I support the idea of getting paid for CD sales, the reality is that you can't stop music from being freely available. The model has changed and the change is irreversible; the new model for musicians is this: sell concert tickets and merchandise (and CDs AT the shows!). If the record industry wants to survive, it's going to have to cut out the middlemen, lower CD prices (while CDs last!) and get involved in other areas, such as the aforementioned merchandising...maybe they should just start buying concert halls! They're going to lose this suit in China...and with encrypted file sharing solutions like GigaTribe taking over ( http://www.gigatribe.com ), they're not going to be able to track down file-sharers like they used to. If they keep up like this, they won't have any money left to pay their lawyers!!
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NunYa, 7 Mar 2007 @ 8:50am

Re: a waste of time
One can only Hope...
$10.oo sez that the music industry as a whole will have a working model of our current system/distro consumer culture, just about the time that music is sold then down loaded in the store to your flash drive to be taken home and used as you see fit.

Then they will throw a tantrum over that too.
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Eric, 7 Mar 2007 @ 9:13am

Re: check the contracts
That is a creative use of the term "artist" considering what these people turn out is, unfortunately, not art. It's formula-drivin CRAP designed to turn a profit for the record company rather than a representation of the musician's (or musicians') personal vision(s).
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me, 7 Mar 2007 @ 10:17am

this is one of those rare times
when I sympathize with the chinese.
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Nobody Special, 8 Mar 2007 @ 4:54am

Re: Re: check the contracts
I totally agree that the vast majority of major recording artists today are turning out crap. And that blame lies mostly with the large five recording companies. They even have a tight control on what you hear on the radio.

I think what will help is for smaller (real) artists to get a group together to allow no cost playing of their music on the internet. Eventually the market will force the big five to conform.
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Eric, 8 Mar 2007 @ 8:41am

Re: Re: Re: check the contracts
I agree, I am such a musician myself and there are such venues already. However, they usually end up carrying major label groups on top of everything else drowning them out (the best one so far is music.download.com).
Hell, if this group could get enough money together it may be possible to start a record label that is more of a paid membership deal that has no significant (if any) financial stake in the music itself allowing the artists to write what they please.
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