Author accuses Baidu of pirating his novels
By Li Qian |
July 11, 2012, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE of China's bestselling novelists, Han Han, brought Baidu, the country's biggest search engine, to a Beijing court yesterday afternoon for publishing three of his books and offering downloads without his permission
Han demanded that Baidu Wenku, the company's online document sharing platform, halt the copyright infringement, publish an apology letter for a successive seven days on its website, and compensate him more than 760,000 yuan (US$119,396), his lawyer said.
The author, 29, also called for shutting down the platform, the Haidian District People's Court heard. Han didn't appear in court yesterday.
According to the indictment, Baidu Wenku didn't act against uploading of the author's books by Internet users and instead published them online to attract viewers and boost revenues.
Han has repeatedly asked the platform to stop piracy and copyright infringement, but it just "gave him a runaround" and copies of Han's novels remained in their system, Han's lawyer said.
Baidu stressed it was a place to store and share information and said netizens were to blame, accusing them of "maliciously uploading" Han's works, the court heard.
The industry giant claimed it has alerted people concerning the intellectual property rights protection before they uploaded the works, and has deleted Han's three novels in a timely fashion as required.
"Baidu neither committed wrongdoing nor was responsible for it," the company said in defending itself in court. It accused Han of maliciously making complaints.
Han's lawyer argued Baidu's criticism was "ridiculous" because it didn't take effective measures to stop piracy, but instead recommended the uploaded versions of Han's novels by adding key words to its search engine to facilitate the violations.
Baidu, however, said the key words were listed automatically by the system.
The case generated a four-hour, fierce debate.
The court didn't announce a verdict yesterday.
Legal experts said Han would find it difficult to win the lawsuit because it was hard to identify whether Baidu turned a blind eye to the unauthorized uploading or didn't recognize the violations among the massive amount of information that it handles on the Internet.
Han demanded that Baidu Wenku, the company's online document sharing platform, halt the copyright infringement, publish an apology letter for a successive seven days on its website, and compensate him more than 760,000 yuan (US$119,396), his lawyer said.
The author, 29, also called for shutting down the platform, the Haidian District People's Court heard. Han didn't appear in court yesterday.
According to the indictment, Baidu Wenku didn't act against uploading of the author's books by Internet users and instead published them online to attract viewers and boost revenues.
Han has repeatedly asked the platform to stop piracy and copyright infringement, but it just "gave him a runaround" and copies of Han's novels remained in their system, Han's lawyer said.
Baidu stressed it was a place to store and share information and said netizens were to blame, accusing them of "maliciously uploading" Han's works, the court heard.
The industry giant claimed it has alerted people concerning the intellectual property rights protection before they uploaded the works, and has deleted Han's three novels in a timely fashion as required.
"Baidu neither committed wrongdoing nor was responsible for it," the company said in defending itself in court. It accused Han of maliciously making complaints.
Han's lawyer argued Baidu's criticism was "ridiculous" because it didn't take effective measures to stop piracy, but instead recommended the uploaded versions of Han's novels by adding key words to its search engine to facilitate the violations.
Baidu, however, said the key words were listed automatically by the system.
The case generated a four-hour, fierce debate.
The court didn't announce a verdict yesterday.
Legal experts said Han would find it difficult to win the lawsuit because it was hard to identify whether Baidu turned a blind eye to the unauthorized uploading or didn't recognize the violations among the massive amount of information that it handles on the Internet.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
