Baidu, Sogou win court case against music groups

The mass-used Chinese search engine Baidu has been cleared by court of copyright infringement in a dispute with the music industry, the IFPI trade body for the music sector said Tuesday.

A Beijing court ruled that the search engine had not broken rules by providing a link to music products.

The case was launched in the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court by Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Hong Kong, and Warner Music Hong Kong in 2008. They accused Baidu of providing "deep links" to hundreds of thousands of tracks on third-party sites.

Another site called Sohu was also cleared by the court, the IFPI said.

"The judgments in the Baidu and Sohu/Sogou cases are extremely disappointing, and we are considering our next steps," the IFPI said in a statement.