Writers join musicians to take on Baidu 'thief'
By Xu Chi |
March 16, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINESE writers, poets and publishers have joined up with musicians in a bid to take Baidu, the country's biggest search engine, to court for alleged copyright infringement.
The writers posted a public letter on Sina's microblog, condemning Baidu Wenku, its online document sharing platform, for publishing their work without permission and accusing the company of threatening the future of the book and music industries.
"Baidu's free music download services have directly led to the shrinking of the Chinese record industry, now it is taking aim at the book industry," the letter said.
It added: "Now we are standing together to face the thief who has stolen our work, and it's our right to tell him to stop."
In the letter, the writers warned that they would all give up writing if they could no longer make a living from it because of the platform offering free books.
The letter is signed by more than 50 well-known writers, including bestselling novelists Han Han, Jia Pingwa and Guo Jingming, who claimed that their rights had been violated by Baidu Wenku.
The letter on the microblog had been forwarded about 15,000 times since 10am yesterday.
The campaign follows a record company's battle on behalf of its musicians in which it plans to sue Baidu for offering downloading links to the musicians' songs. The musicians' leader, Lu Zhongqiang, said they would work with the writers to sue Baidu.
Poet and Motie Book Co CEO Shen Haobo, one of the organizers of the writers' campaign, said they issued the letter to make the government and public aware of the seriousness of what Baidu was doing. Shen said there would be no future for the cultural industries and the intellectual property rights protection campaigns if the country continued to turn a blind eye.
"Baidu is the biggest platform for piracy in human history and it's a big joke that it has gone so far without any punishment," Shen said.
Baidu officials said they would not comment.
The writers posted a public letter on Sina's microblog, condemning Baidu Wenku, its online document sharing platform, for publishing their work without permission and accusing the company of threatening the future of the book and music industries.
"Baidu's free music download services have directly led to the shrinking of the Chinese record industry, now it is taking aim at the book industry," the letter said.
It added: "Now we are standing together to face the thief who has stolen our work, and it's our right to tell him to stop."
In the letter, the writers warned that they would all give up writing if they could no longer make a living from it because of the platform offering free books.
The letter is signed by more than 50 well-known writers, including bestselling novelists Han Han, Jia Pingwa and Guo Jingming, who claimed that their rights had been violated by Baidu Wenku.
The letter on the microblog had been forwarded about 15,000 times since 10am yesterday.
The campaign follows a record company's battle on behalf of its musicians in which it plans to sue Baidu for offering downloading links to the musicians' songs. The musicians' leader, Lu Zhongqiang, said they would work with the writers to sue Baidu.
Poet and Motie Book Co CEO Shen Haobo, one of the organizers of the writers' campaign, said they issued the letter to make the government and public aware of the seriousness of what Baidu was doing. Shen said there would be no future for the cultural industries and the intellectual property rights protection campaigns if the country continued to turn a blind eye.
"Baidu is the biggest platform for piracy in human history and it's a big joke that it has gone so far without any punishment," Shen said.
Baidu officials said they would not comment.
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