If you are in the USA or Europe, you might have thought you and your countrymen are being unfairly targeted by the recording industry, while other countries get treated lightly. That’s not necessarily the case, as it looks like China is now the focus of attention.

The recording industry, through their various organisations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) are fighting a losing battle against Internet pirates, and people who download copyrighted material illegally from the Internet, but they continue to fight the good fight bless them.

Their latest target isn’t The Pirate Bay (who have their own problems in Sweden right now), or a student from Nowhereville, who made the mistake of downloading a few tracks using a computer on his campus. Instead, it’s the whole country of China, or more specifically, a few websites which have been ignoring demands to stop allowing the theft of copyrighted music.

Universal Music, Gold Label, Sony BMG and Warner Music have all brought legal action against a number of companies in China, who it is claimed were deep linking to hundreds of thousands of copyright infringing music tracks on third party sites in an attempt to drive advertising revenue to their own sites.

Those targeted include China’s biggest Internet company Baidu, Yahoo China, Sohu and its associate company Sogou.

John Kennedy, Chairman and Chief Executive of IFPI said in a press release:

“The music industry in China wants partnership with the technology companies – but you cannot build partnership on the basis of systemic theft of copyrighted music and that is why we have been forced to take further actions.”

“China’s internet companies have a unique opportunity to demonstrate respect for copyright, take a stand against piracy and engage in responsible partnership with music companies.”

“It’s a matter of great regret that, despite the clear precedent laid down by the Yahoo China judgment, those internet companies are instead choosing blatant violation of copyright, with the inevitable and unwanted litigation that follows in its wake.”

It was obvious China would be targeted, as soon as the IFPI realised the potential for profit to be made in that emerging market. China has as many broadband Internet connections as the USA, and that is growing at a faster rate than anywhere else.

Unfortunately for the recording industry, 99% of all music files currently distributed in the country are pirated and sales in the actual legal, legitimate market only amount to US$76 million, or less than one per cent of global recorded music sales.

For a country that has the potential to become the largest online music buying public in the world, that’s a pretty dire figure, and so the IFPI has stepped in to take action.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am under Crime, Internet, Opinion, Piracy.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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