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Yahoo! Slammed Over Piracy By Chinese Court
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:53 PM
from the dangerous-precedent dept.
from the dangerous-precedent dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Setting a precedent likely to have far-ranging consequences, a Chinese court has once again lambasted Yahoo! China over piracy concerns. The search firm is (according to the court) infringing on intellectual property rights by allowing copyrighted materials to be downloaded from the internet via search results. 'John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, or IFPI, said in a statement Thursday. "By confirming that Yahoo China's service violates copyright under new Chinese laws, the Beijing court has effectively set the standard for Internet companies throughout the country."'"
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fgaliegue writes "Ars Technica has a follow-up on the ifpi.com domain takeover by The Pirate Bay. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, ifpi.org, is quite unhappy that the .com is now a link to the (still not live) International Federation of Pirates Interests. The ifpi.com domain has been free as soon as March of this year, according to WebArchive. Nevertheless, the "real" IFPI wants to take it to the WIPO under the accusation of cybersquatting."
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IS this pay back for the US GOV trying to stand up (Score:2)
I hope yahoo! does not send more people to Political Prisons.
Re:IS this pay back for the US GOV trying to stand (Score:2)
These are US companies doing the lobbying... China is the prototype for what the US "security"/"morality" market wants the US govt to pass into law.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No surprises (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonsense! (Score:2)
I'm not selectively bashing the Chinese because it's only slightly different in the U.S. Look at how the Telco's gave the NSA what they wanted with no questions asked.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What universe to you live in? Since when has the NSA arrested anyone because they are critical on a blog, towards the US?
How is it a slight difference? Next you'll be saying the US is only slightly different than Iraq was under Saddam, because we have death by lethal injection and they dropped chemical weapons on Kurds.
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Er, actually this is happening. Except that say that its because the journalist's source is a terrorist and the journalist must reveal the source. Some have been held without trial indefinitely.
There have been 130,000 deaths in Iraq since the US inva
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is "no."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
My guess is "no."
Yeah, especially when you consider that much of the Chinese economy is based on pirated stuff.
In the same article (Score:3, Interesting)
Separately, the court also upheld a ruling on a similar case against Internet company Baidu. A lower court in November 2006 had found that Baidu had facilitated copyright infringement. But because this case was filed under older Chinese copyright laws in 2005, the company was not liable for copyright infringement, the IFPI said.
"We are disappointed that the court did not find Baidu liable," Kennedy said in a statement. "But that judgment was about Baidu's actions in the past, under an old law that is no longer in force. Baidu should now prepare to have its actions judged under the new law. We are confident a court would hold Baidu liable as it has Yahoo China."
So maybe Baidu has fixed their acts?
Oh... wait... is Baidu.com a Chinese company? That's hard to say because the fact is most successful Chinese Internet companies, including alibaba.com, which was funded by Softbank and Yahoo and which now owns Yahoo China, are funded and run by western VCs. But then that would answer your concern. Who cares the thousands of little real Chinese websites like the pirate DVD sellers across streets in China.
Piracy != Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
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Man, I thought that headline was "Yahoo! Slammed Over Privacy By Chinese Court", and I was really confused.
Really, either one makes about the same amount of sense. Which is none.
Selective Enforcement (Score:5, Funny)
A trendsetter! (Score:2)
If I understand this correctly... (Score:5, Insightful)
"By confirming that Yahoo China's service violates copyright under new Chinese laws, the Beijing court has effectively set the standard for Internet companies throughout the country."
Translation: "The government has staked its claim. It will control the flow of information on the web across the board. This is just a small step."
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They laid down with pigs and got dirty.
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Site owners who DON'T want their sites OR material OR both to appear should add flags in the site headers. Yahoo! and other search engines could make some deal (not for exploitation by content owners) that if they opt out, then they stand to lose out on advertising. If they opt in, they flag how deep the sites can crawl down throug
Re: (Score:2)
The Chinese already don't have real Internet (Score:2)
Irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Loosely translated... (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:2)
Keep throwing those stones, China; I'm sure it'll do wonders for your glass house.
Re: (Score:2)
Your... (Score:2, Insightful)
I also think we need to sue Toyota for all the car accidents in the world, the fire/matches for all the destruction in Southern California and god for any and all wars/plagues after 0 BC... WTF?!?
But yeah, this isn't surprising from a country that had a campaign to kill rice eating birds... only to have the locusts devastate their crops the next year.
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Heard this argument before (Score:2, Insightful)
This basically settles the opinion IMO that the RIAA's views on copyright infringement is akin to that of the Chinese government.
SCARY!
Now included with your Yahoo search results in China: 10 years hard labor!
Paging Dr. Freud (Score:2)
playing the word association game (Score:2)
I can't resist. I'll say it!
Even though I always consistently with no single exception pause with great surprise upon reading this word, I think my pattern classifier is correct to place it in the category it always does, perhaps it better describes the value of their contribution to society.
i'm shocked (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm from China. According to my knowledge (yes I may be wrong) there is a corrupted and politics-oriented jurisdiction system in China but these judges in Beijing are simply performing the practice of Foolishness, which is very unusual.
And the "new" copyright law... What the fuck is that? I'm not a lawyer but I think I'll be digging in the library for a while in search of the new law. OK if there is really such a piece of crap in our laws there must be some fucking shit in the head of the congressmen or a
Re:When in China... (Score:4, Funny)
Shoot people and charge their families for the bullet?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OH NOZ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:OH NOZ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Large governments do tend to engage in nationalistic hypocracy, however, so I guess this shouldn't be terribly surprising.
Parent
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It's also telling/glaring that Baidu.com is not being held to the same standards. That site even has a specialized mp3 search on it - http://mp3.baidu.com/ [baidu.com].
Large governments do tend to engage in nationalistic hypocracy, however, so I guess this shouldn't be terribly surprising.
Well, baidu is pretty much only used by Chinese people (though I don't see any English option on Yahoo!, but it's at least a more obvious target for westerns), so why would westerner companies care about that? I mean, Chinese people can't tend to afford western prices, so sales lost are probably small. In fact, piracy may be a good thing for the future of a product, in the same way it has been for MS Windows - it's pervasive here because it's free (almost). If MS Windows was it's real price, Linux would be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Talk about calling the kettle black. China is probably the largest source of piracy. They really should handle the problem of people selling pirate CDs and DVDs before going after Yahoo for indexing some warez site.
They are going after people selling CDs and DVDs. I've seen numerous DVD stores shutdown in the past year. To start with, the stores were forced to sell them under the counter or out of a back room, but now the stores are *gone*. Admittedly, these stores were near a Holiday Inn, so they're focusing on the more obvious (to westerners, at least) ones, but still.
I know of just one store now, and that is far from any hotels in the middle of an area populated mostly by Koreans. Furthermore, I've recently seen s
Re:OH NOZ! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the clothing in particular is sold only as a tourist attraction. I'd say that the names and appearance aren't even slightly modified either - they're exactly the same, except that they don't last too long (perhaps they're 'seconds' or have failed quality control).
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about China specifically, but they're one of the faster, more reliable broadband services in Japan, and offer something not unlike Verizon FiOS. Including a broadband television service.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FWIW, I've lived in China for several years and haven't heard of any internet access service provided by Yahoo!. All broadband access I've heard of is provided by CNC, if not directly then by a reseller of some kind.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this [smiles and waves his fingers at Morden]. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
Re: (Score:2)
The Shadows wanted to spread chaos, death, and destruction across the galaxy. They DESERVED to get their home base nuked by Sheridan.
That doesn't mean it's fair to compare them to LAWYERS, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm minded of another line from the same show, by a Mr. A. Bester. It went roughly like this:
"Did you really think I'd just sit back and let a group of evil aliens walk in and enslave Earth? That's my job.". I see certain parallels between China and Bester here.
Why turn to gov't when you can do it yourself? (Score:2)
How about we accept personal responsibility and take actions ourselves rather than rely on the government? Simply avoid Chinese products if at all possible. That has the added benefit that there is no opportunity for government level retaliation, WTO suits, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
You're a member of Prostitutes for the RIAA, or you mean 'could' in the technical sense of 'couldn't'?
Sorry, sometimes I just can't resist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow.... (Score:2, Informative)
How do you expect anyone to take YOU seriously when you don't even know the difference between N. Korea and China. The leader you are thinking of is Kim Jong Il of North Korea. He had his nation's media
Re: (Score:2)
The United States has little manufacturing base left. The American economy is completely dependant on China.
That's only partially true. As the recent mess with lead paint in toys showed, the U.S. is not as dependent on Chinese goods as you would expect. As soon as the news broke, several companies began responding to public perception and shifted their production from China to other countries. Companies understand that as long as it is acceptable to produce goods in China, they can continue to do so, but if it becomes unacceptable with their clients, they have two options: They can just slim their profit margins
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You haven't looked at the US balance of payment figures lately have you? Nor what China does with all those dollars it gets?
If it turned its dollars into yuan, the yuan would get too expensive, so instead they look for dollar-based things to buy. Last I checked they were flooding the US credit market, by supporting all this government spending.
If we suddenly embargoed china, we'd be fucked. Though, honestly, we're just postponing the inevitable.