Sir, Censorship is not the only issue surrounding China’s internet strategy (“Tear down the great firewall”, Editorial, March 23). The continued widespread abuse of the intellectual property of Chinese and international rights owners is a dark cloud hanging over the country’s e-commerce miracle.
Our organisations represent the legitimate music sector in China and internationally, comprising thousands of record labels and music publishers. Our members want to partner with and invest in China’s digital revolution, but they cannot do so while the music service run by the dominant internet company, Baidu, facilitates infringement of the rights of artists and creators online.
The legitimate Chinese music market is a huge investment opportunity that is waiting to happen. This is a country with twice as many internet users as the US, but where legitimate music consumption is minuscule, with digital revenues per user at less than 1 per cent of the US equivalent.
Baidu is the biggest source of this problem, with its MP3 music search service estimated to be responsible for more than 50 per cent of infringing music distribution in China. It has the means to bring immediate change by proactively filtering infringing works from this service.
As one of China’s most successful companies with a growing profile internationally, Baidu will face increasing pressure on this issue in the coming months. This was demonstrated last month when the US government highlighted Baidu in its list of “notorious markets”. The protests have been echoed in recent weeks by a coalition of Chinese authors and by Japanese book publishers.
Our members welcome the commitment of the Chinese government to improve enforcement of intellectual property rights. It is now time for corporate role models such as Baidu to lead this initiative from the front.
