Chinese sites in trouble over music rights
Trumpeting its legitimacy was a ?surefire way for Top100.cn to win over consumers and the industry.
For just one yuan per song, mainland consumers could buy anything from The Beatles to Britney Spears, Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai. It was an impressive list set to make the website the iTunes of China.
But after a little research, reality set in. The appearance of The Beatles collection on Top100.cn was a red flag that something was amiss. The Beatles' repertoire has never been licensed to any digital content provider, including Apple's iTunes. If the site was selling The Beatles, then it was not doing so legitimately.
Representatives from major labels such as Warner Music and independents such as Rock Records, whose artists include May Day, said they had held discussions with Top100.cn executives, with varying outcomes. Rock Records said it had met once with Top100.cn, and nothing had come of it.
EMI, which has distribution rights to The Beatles' physical CDs but not digital sales, said it had licensed some content.
For all its claims of legitimacy, Top100.cn's legitimate status was falling short of that mark.
It is impossible for the most conscientious of consumers to know if the music they are paying for is legal. The reasonable assumption is that if it is online and costs money, then it must be legal.
The other belief is that if the music comes from a reputable source, then it must be legitimate.
'Since Yahoo is trusted, most people just assume it must be legal,' said Aileen Yuan, a Shanghai internet user.
Not quite. In fact, Yahoo China is offering users direct links to unlicensed downloads and streams of local and international songs. The songs do not exist on Yahoo China's servers, therefore it claims innocence.
'Yahoo China doesn't actually post the works which [users] are downloading,' said Porter Erisman, vice-president of international marketing for Alibaba, which operates Yahoo China.
But a case against Baidu.com set a legal precedent against the practice of deep-linking, where a search engine directs a user directly to a downloadable file.
A Beijing court ruled against Baidu in September last year in a case brought by Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Company, the local distributor for EMI. Baidu has appealed, but the early ruling gives an idea of how the Chinese courts view the practice.
Yahoo China has gone even further than Baidu with its music service, offering lists of artist, song and albums, and links to lyrics, streams, ring tones and MP3s.
For the music industry, getting Chinese sites to operate legitimately has been only half the battle. Now they need to teach them the meaning of the word.
