Music Industry Prepares to Sue Yahoo China 133
magicchex writes "According to their chairman, John Kennedy, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) is preparing to sue Yahoo China unless negotiations are agreed upon which satisfy the IFPI. Yahoo China is the second most popular search engine in China, with the frontrunner, Baidu, already involved in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the IFPI. The BBC article is vague in its description of what exactly Yahoo China would be sued for, mentioning that it provides links to pirated music tracks but not explaining this any further other than a statement that 'a simple search on Yahoo China found mp3 files of recent releases for direct download within a few clicks.'"
I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's seriously the only reason I can think of.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
I can't see US lawyers doing very well in a Chinese court..
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
The first I in IFPI means International. Who says they only have American lawyers? Simple reasoning would state that from the name they have a lot of different lawyers in different countries and that they have the resources to be good ones.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to be the case, but now it seems to be getting harder (at least on google)
Theres more spam and lyrics and legal sites coming up tops.
By the time you find anything your on page 97 and searching in foreign languages on random domains.
I just gave an example of looking for a specific ebook and not managing to find it by direct filename and other common things on google, but managing to get it very easily from yahoo.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
Try to find this file [gotshoo.com]. It's a song by my friends Posamist [posamist.com] named "Silky Smooth".
Search for "posamist silky smooth" (no quotes) and you only get links to some old shit on K5 mentioning the song and band. You won't find the MP3, even though I linked to all their MP3s on my (Google indexed) blog September of last year.
Which is what the RIAA/MPAA want. A Yahoo search DOES return the file, it's the fourth result. What was that about Google not being evil again?
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)
Which is what the RIAA/MPAA want. A Yahoo search DOES return the file, it's the fourth result. What was that about Google not being evil again?
Um. I searched for "posamist silky smooth" (no quotes) on Google, and the third result was this [gotshoo.com]. Is that the MP3 you're talking about, or are there two bands called Posamist who have released songs called Silky Smooth?
And even if I hadn't been able to find the MP3 you named on Google in three clicks, I'm not sure exactly how that would make Google "evil". Evil is when you contribute to human suffering, not when you don't index binary files on your text search engine.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, if Google succeeds in affecting this non-RIAA artist's livelihood by caving into the RIAA's demands to censor all MP3s, that doesn't exactly sound like kindness. But I guess that artist can get probably get a job doing something else, and the RIAA will have one less competitor to worry about.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
Particularly if they were paid to do so!
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3)
Ok, maybe not evil, but not very helpful either. Many people claim that Google is the best search engine. What this story tends to indicate is that Yahoo beats it handily if you happen to be searching for MP3s. That means Google is either purposely screwin
Not really (Score:1)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:2)
If Google thinks your website (or section of the site) is a blog, they don't index it in their primary index. Instead, you'll have to go to "Blog Search" on a second page at Google's site.
(I suspect that Google looks for an RSS/Atom feed file to make the determination.)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Informative)
Works with movies too.
Not that one should ever condone such a thing
Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Informative)
The same goes for any filetype. Google is doing well at giving copyrighted materials low rankings, their livelihood depends on it, but as long as they index everything, everything is available.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)
The federation is also considering using a new Chinese law that came into effect July 1 that fines distributors of illegally copied music, movies and other material over the Internet as much as 100,000 yuan ($12,500). As of today, Chinese search engines operated by Yahoo China and Baidu.com provide links to other Web sites hosting illegally copied songs.
The law says a Web site is jointly liable with the host of the pirated files for infringement ``if it knows or should know that the work, performance or sound or video recording linked to was infringing.''
Apparently there is no such law in Western countries.Re:I'm sure... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who decides what the website should know? If you link to a website with a bunch of mp3's called My_Talk1.mp3, My_Talk2.mp3, .... , My_Talk20.mp3 and it turns out My_Talk5.mp3 is a Madonna track, can you be prosecuted because you should have checked? Who draws the line and where?
Seems like you could e
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
For good reason, but there's a lot of interest here in the U.S. to try and end that immunity. Of course, if they do succeed in making engines responsible for linked content it will simply end search engines, which wouldn't bother some people one bit. China's government is in the unenviable position of wanting all the benefits of free flow of information provided by search without the perceived liabilities. What's unfortunate is that their perceptions o
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Insightful)
Im sure that if they win this, and get some $ of it, they will start going after smaller fish ( that still have an international presence )
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does Yahoo China get the can for this?
Because Yahoo China has demonstrated that they're able and willing to filter search results, pass off user account information to anyone who asks, and generally behave like asshats. Which means they totally lose the "we're just an innocent little search engine, we can't filter our output, it'd be a major hardship" common-carrier type of defense.
That's probably not the reason, but it would be about what they deserve...
c.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
If Yahoo China can supress results based on edicts from the "mean old Chinese government," perhaps the music industry is going to say "Well now, you clealy CAN filter the results if you want to or are forced to. We want you to filter out links to illgotten content that we own. If you don't, you're contributing to the problem and have some liability."
That's the flip side of caving in to search engine filtering. The slope is quite slippery....
Re:I'm sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
My question is, isnt Yahoo! USA the same company as Yahoo! China? cant they "provide" their lawyers force?
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:2)
http://music.yahoo.com.cn/ [yahoo.com.cn]
Set it for mp3, and most of the links actually work to download! I've used this to uhm.. explore some files before.
I think this might just be what they're suing over.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:2)
Maybe they need the advertising...
Re:I'm sure... (Score:1)
this is getting silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is getting silly (Score:5, Funny)
What's wrong with that? If it saves the life of one innocent child, isn't it worth it? We must do our patriotic duty to make sure there are no links to links to links and especialy no circular links to pirated materials anywhere on the net. Do your part good citizen and help to assure that the children of RIAA executives are assured a bright future!
Stick with the agreed hype, please (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stick with the agreed hype, please (Score:2)
Re:Stick with the agreed hype, please (Score:1, Redundant)
Blast those terrorists for abusing tools created for such benevolent goals...
Re:this is getting silly (Score:1)
<Warning the above post may or may not be fiction>
Re:this is getting silly (Score:3, Funny)
* Some restriction apply. Does not include surcharges or related expenses. Only applicable 3 days per week. Government may alter agreement without notice. Not suitable for children under 12.
Re:this is getting silly (Score:1)
The "Land of the Free" (Score:4, Funny)
On the other hand, it may be a good idea to attach a generator to G. Washington's, T. Jefferson's and co coffins. Just think of the free energy!
Re:The "Land of the Free" (Score:1)
Re:The "Land of the Free" (Score:3, Insightful)
People have been making excuses for evil totalitarian regimes (attempting to prove that they are better in at least some respects) since time immemorial. Stop me if you've heard some of these before: "at least they make the trains run on time," "at least they provide free health-care," "at least they provide free education," "there is no famine over there [wikipedia.org]," "the people seem to enjoy
Re:The "Land of the Free" (Score:2)
In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Mail can be used to send possibly illegal objects.
Roads can be used to go to some possibily illegal destination.
Weapons can be used to kill someone, possibly in an illegal way.
Phones can be used to call someone and say possibily illegal things.
Unless we want to take care of all the above mentioned "problems", I don't see why we should be concerned with search engines and specifically single them out.
Oh wait, they have lotsa money. Now I understand.
Eh? (Score:2)
How's this different from any other search engine [google.co.uk] (try the 3rd link and 1 more click!)?? Why aren't other search engines being sued?
Haydn.
Re:Eh? (Score:2)
Now they can gamble in Chinese court and, who knows, they might even win!
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
Re:Eh? (Score:2)
Maybe you were more persistent than me, but all I saw at your link was a bunch of spam, dead links and promises of free dowloads, but no actual MP3 files. I'm sure they can be found, but the SEO scumbags have done a good job of making it hard to find.
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
They have four CD's worth of MP3s for free download, none googleable.
Pretty much proves what I've been saying all along - the RIAA/IFPI isn't trying to keep Madonna and Metallica off the internet, they want to keep you from hearing Posamist and The Station [thestationmusic.com] (Whose FLAC files on archive.org can't be sucessfully googled for, either).
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
posamist mp3
#2 and #3 results link directly to the pages with the download links on them.
"the station" flac
#1 result is to their archive.org pages
So, if anyone actually wanted those files, google would be able to show them where they were.
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
Why they dont sue Encyclopedia Brittannica ? (Score:2)
America shouldnt let morons to be president of anything, neither the country, nor corporations or organisations.
Re:Why they dont sue Encyclopedia Brittannica ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why they dont sue Encyclopedia Brittannica ? (Score:2)
Re:Why they dont sue Encyclopedia Brittannica ? (Score:2)
Re:Why they dont sue Encyclopedia Brittannica ? (Score:2)
*Eyes TV listings*
We sure seem to have the lion's share, though...
I noticed this on yahoo uk (Score:2, Interesting)
Now this just isn't right, can I sue google for NOT finding the things I'm looking for?
Speaking of lawsuits for stupid things, can I sue yahoo myself for their stupid new frontpage?
I thought the slash redesign was a bit wonky, but the yahoo one actually does make my eyes bleed, it keeps sliding downwards under some java shit which makes me feel sick. Anyway, I'v
Re:I noticed this on yahoo uk (Score:1)
Re:I noticed this on yahoo uk (Score:1)
Yes you can, it would seem.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/07/03/google_sued
google makes this even easier (Score:1, Informative)
intitle:index.of "mp3" +"INSERT BAND HERE" -htm -html -php -asp "Last Modified"
Re:google makes this even easier (Score:1)
Cervantes will be happy... (Score:2)
But who's playing Sancho Panza? Tony Blair?
Liberty out of China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair enough, but consider this: any issue can be framed in terms of liberty. For example, you could say that white Americans no longer have the "liberty" to own other Americans (black), or that Germans no longer have the "liberty" to kill Jews with impunity; however, it is not entirely intellectually honest to do so. China will eventually enforce I.P. laws; the only question
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
has worthwhile I.P. to protect
Meaningless. All things can be labelled "property" and made valuable by defining the rules appropriately.
The government could say I have the right to charge anybody who has a shit. That would be a very valuable intellectual property indeed. Doesn't mean that it's desirable or of net benefit to society to organise the rules that way.
The same reasoning applies to the USA exporting "their" "intellectual property". If the rest of the world decides the USA's fanatical view o
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
You know, even the most cursory readup on libertarianism tears down that strawman.
Intellectual 'property' is a coercive government granted monopoly. The issue is pretty black and white from a liberty point of view; most informed (and intellectually 'honest') arguments in favour of it are based upon utilitarian aspects (ie, (mistaken belief, imo), that it drives a higher rate of development, etc).
"the U.S. does not export much beside I.P.; if you have any sense of
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
What c
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Liberty out of China? (Score:2)
That's like saying 'the product is construction materials, not concrete'. Or 'the product is meat, not a particular kind of animal meat'. Or 'the product is gases, and if you dont like our price on oxygen go buy some other gas to breathe'.
You only have competition (as in, the kind that actually creates increasing wealth as it drives efficiency in the search of profits) when you have price competition on equivalent interchangeable products.
In a competetive market
How this is different from other search engines (Score:5, Informative)
Examples?
http://music.yahoo.com.cn/search.html?pid=ysearch
http://music.yahoo.com.cn/search.html?pid=ysearch
Re:How this is different from other search engines (Score:2, Funny)
Bravo to them, I say. Bravo.
Re:How this is different from other search engines (Score:1)
Re:How this is different from other search engines (Score:1)
Pr0nographic... (Score:1)
Re:Pr0nographic... (Score:1)
Re:Pr0nographic... (Score:1)
Memo to Recording Industry (Score:1)
Re:Memo to Recording Industry (Score:2)
Re:Memo to Recording Industry (Score:2)
Why bother? they have found a great model for keeping themselves relevant: Have the laws rewritten globally so that everyone becomes a criminal or is assisting in criminal activity. Sue anything that moves. Demonize anyone that opposes you and start massive PR campaigns to convince society that you are right, eventhough it makes everyone else a criminal.
The problem with that is it only enriches lawyers. Suing people who don't have anywhere near the financial resources to match the recording industry le
Unbelievable (Score:4, Interesting)
Did anyone else try going to yahoo.com.cn? (Score:2)
I mean...thanks for the advertisement!
Actually, as it turns out, it doesn't look to be any better than the western counterpart. Then again, maybe all those sites I couldn't read were full of songs, but I doubt it.
Is it Yahoo's job... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a joke (Score:1)
Uhm...WHAT? (Score:1)
Re:Uhm...WHAT? (Score:1)
Then the question is this: is it easier to bust 1000 pot dealers, half of whom are anonymous or untracable, or the guy who helps everyone find them? They are just trying to "fix the glitch" (in office space speak) by cutting off the dealers from traffic (and thus revenue) and hoping that they go away on their own.
That part makes sense to me. What doesnt make sense is why they have chose yahoo
Re:Uhm...WHAT? (Score:2)
Well, if the guy who helps everyone find them really does help everyone find them, then it will be really easy to bust them, as they will be neither anonymous nor untraceable. The gpp's point here was that Yahoo!'s service has great value for the music industry's efforts to enforce its IP. I guess the music industry's position is that they'd prefer to have security through obscurity.
Music industry sues itself (Score:1)
Ohhh, Phono - graphic (Score:1)
Re:Ohhh, Phono - graphic (Score:2)
No, every time there's a story about the IFPI, somebody points that out. I see by your UID that you're a relatively new member, so I'm guessing this is the first time you've read an IFPI story.
I think there's also a "BPI" (British Phonographic Industry) that similarly confounds some Slashdotters. Lots of younger Slashdotters are also surprised by the word "phonograph" in the organization name and don't understand why an organization would have such an archaic word in their title. I guess young people h
Who'da thunk? (Score:1)
Why not use it? (Score:2)
Yeah... (Score:1)
July 4th (Score:1)
What does it mean ... (Score:1)
Oblig. (Score:2)
IFPI: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.
Kim Jong Il: IFPI, IFPI, IFPI! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any pirated music, OK IFPI?
IFPI: Then let me look around, so I can ease the IFPI's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the IFPI must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else what?
IFPI: Or else we will be very angry with you... and
STUPID! YOU, IFPI, ARE SO STUPID! (Score:1)
Chinese Ambassador: "No way in Hell are we going to pay! ARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Make these Europeans walk the plank and fall into the Hell of the Hungry Sharks!"
/In deed!
Where is Lee Harvy Oswald? (Score:1)
ATTENTION MODS (Score:2, Informative)