ONLINE MUSIC EAST & WEST

Shangai Daily reports that a coalition of music companies have lost a copyright action against Chinese search engine Baidu. The music companies claimed that Baidu had engaged in illegal downloading. However, Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court found that Baidu's service, which provides Web links to the music, does not constitute an infringement as all the music is downloaded from web servers of third parties.

Meanwhile, Universal Music Group has sued MySpace in the US for secondary infringement according to the San Jose Mercury. UMG claims that MySpace "encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance." The action points in particular to features of MySpace that enable users to store copies of videos on their profile pages, and to access copyright material without permission.

The IPKat says that legally, he doesn’t see why those who infringe copyright via the internet should be in any better position that those who indulge in ‘low-tech’ copyright infringement. At the same time though, he salutes those copyright owners who have embraced the new forms of technology (e.g. by making use of MySpace) in a way which benefits both them and their fans.