Baidu beaten in landmark copyright case
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According to China's Copyright Law, violators have to pay the amount of money equal to losses suffered by the copyright owner due to the infringement, or the amount of profits gained by the offender through illegal actions, with a maximum of 500,000 yuan.
In March, 50 Chinese writers published an open letter accusing Baidu of stealing their works and demanding that the search engine giant stop its copyright infringement.
Shen Haobo, president of Beijing Motie Books, one of the representatives of the coalition, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the court ruling marked a good start for writers and publishers who were fighting for their rights.
"It's a positive signal from the judiciary. Shanda's victory proved that we should trust law enforcement as it will bring about effective solutions in tackling copyright infringement. It is encouraging and I'm considering filing my lawsuit against Baidu," Shen said.
Cheng Sanguo, chief consultant of Bookdao New Publishing Institute, voiced concerns that a lack of (intellectual property rights) IPR protection would victimize everyone.
"The mainstream publishers seem to be reluctant to trust digital publishers and are unwilling to provide their best resources to Internet platforms," he told sohu.com.
The tricky relationship between publishers and Internet platforms contributed to the scarcity of good quality authorized online publications, he said.
Kong Xiangjun, vice president of the IPR Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court, told Beijing News that copyright-related cases make up half of the total cases, while Internet copyright infringement accounts for half of copyright cases.
"Courts will balance IPR protection, Internet technology development and the right to information of Web users to secure fair verdicts," Kong said.
