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Music Companies to Sue Yahoo China

The fight against online piracy never ends and now big names are linked with an online piracy case. A group of music companies plan to sue Yahoo China over complaints linking the online search company with promotion online piracy. Yahoo China violates copyrights by linking to websites that offer pirated music. "Yahoo China has been blatantly infringing our members` rights," said John Kennedy of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries.

"We are taking the preliminary steps required by Chinese law for filing a lawsuit." A representative for Yahoo China, Porter Erisman, said the search engine is acting "within the law." China today is one of the largest suppliers of online piracy and most pirated copies of movies and music originate from China. Yahoo China links to sites that offer hundreds of downloadable MP3 songs and IFPI is working within the Chinese law to fill their lawsuit.

Yahoo China is operated by Alibaba, which is 40 percent owned by Yahoo. Yahoo said "We respect intellectual property rights. If someone sees something on our site that violates intellectual property rights, there is a process for removing it."