Court Says Just Because Baidu Is Listed On NASDAQ, Doesn't Mean It Can Be Sued For Copyright Infringement In The US

from the head-to-china dept

China's largest search engine, Baidu, has had a reputation from very early on as being a source for downloading infringing music and movies. In fact, in 2005 when the company went public, many in China claimed that the availability of music and movies was why Baidu was so popular. In fact, we wondered if by going public, it would put pressure on the company to block those links. Later evidence suggested that Baidu was heavily involved in promoting unauthorized content (potentially even hosting it itself). And while the company has promised to remove links, they seem to reappear almost immediately (and only indexed by Baidu). Not surprisingly, Baidu has been sued many times for copyright infringement.

However, one such case, brought in the US was recently dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The plaintiff claimed that Baidu could be sued in the US because it was listed on NASDAQ, but the court found nothing to support that and dismissed the entire complaint.
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Filed Under: china, copyright, jurisdiction
Companies: baidu


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2009 @ 9:05pm

    never heard of Baidu.com thanks to the Streisand effect I'm gonna check it out. Thank you Stormhale Inc.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    vic williams, 29 Dec 2009 @ 8:04am

    Baidu's pattern

    Baidu's pattern is to create 100's of links to downloadable material then constantly shuffle them. Shuffle actual location names, links, and redirections. The combination of the large scale operation and the shuffling make it very hard to get a handle on things.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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