Chinese Video Sites Align for Anti-Piracy Action

BEIJING: A number of Chinese video sites have teamed up with the MPAA to take legal action against Baidu, the country's largest search engine, and QVOD, which provides a player to stream Internet content, alleging copyright infringement.

Youku Tudou, Sohu Video, Tencent Video, LeTV, MPA, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), CODA, Wanda Films, Enlight Media and Letv Films held an event in Beijing to declare their fight against online video infringement and piracy. The legal action against Baidu and QVOD is seeking RMB300 million ($49.3 million) in compensation.

The complaint targets four Baidu products—Baidu video search, Baidu Yingyin, Baidu Video App and Baidu TV Stick—which, the companies allege, Baidu uses to distribute content without authorization. Baidu users can access third-party content through the Baidu players "which ultimately hurts the operations of online video companies who have legally procured content," the complainants noted in a statement. "Normal searches should provide a link and then take users to a third-party site. Yet Baidu video search pages directly host and play video content, which is a serious violation of the rights of video sites. Baidu is also providing access to rogue video sites that host pirated content and do not have official licensing to operate in China. This behavior is generating revenue and traffic to illegal online video operations. Baidu is also profiting from advertising revenue sharing agreements with such sites. The illegal video sites, built using turn-key content management system solutions, can host hundreds of thousands of movies and television programs, which can be viewed on Baidu Yingyin. Much of the content is unauthorized."

The complaint maintains that Baidu's infringement is particularly egregious on mobile devices, with the Video App allegedly aggregating a host of pirated content.

The Declaration of Joint Online Video Anti-Piracy Action from Youku Tudou, Sohu Video, Tencent Video, LeTV, Motion Picture Association of America, Enlight Media, Huayi Brothers and Wanda Films, states: "We strongly urge Baidu, QVOD and other companies to respect the work of video industry practitioners, and, as Internet industry leaders, to commit to corporate social responsibility to stop piracy that results in unfair competition. We also call on the relevant administrative departments and industry associations to address the ongoing online and mobile Internet piracy situation, to maintain the normal order of competition in the industry, and to combat infringement, piracy and other acts of unfair competition. Finally we urge consumers of Internet and mobile Internet content and all other interested parties to attach importance to the value of intellectual property rights and consciously resist watching the allegedly infringing video program or downloading an application that provides access to pirated content. When all interested parties respect the intellectual property rights of content available via the Internet and mobile Internet, viewers will have better access to quality films, television programs and other content."