China NetEase disables its MP3 Search Engine

China NetEase disables its MP3 Search Engine

Chinese web portal NetEase Inc. which also happens to be one of the only three Chinese three largest U.S.-listed Internet companies has disabled its search engine for MP3 and other music files. This is after concerns were raised about the legitimacy of the files available from the search engine. Co-Founder of the company William Ding said in a statement: “This move is out of concern and respect for copyrights”.

The company of course was not offering the music files for download from their own servers. Instead, they just give out the external links where the searched for content was available for download. Shanghai-based spokesman Jerry Lin added to the above statement: “We’re in support of legal MP3 downloads”.

Jun Wu, president of Beijing-based R2G.net claims that there are thousands of sites in the China, which offer free music for download without any concerns for the copyright of the content. He said about the step taken by NetEase: “This is good news. This is part of an industry trend.” They are also in process of negotiating a deal with Netease that will offer mobile phone downloads of music from record companies or their agents.

Wu said: “I hope everyone will stop pirated MP3 download services. China’s laws are becoming complete and the government will start enforcing online piracy laws soon. It’s better for the portals to stop such search services as soon as possible.” NetEase is the first Chinese company to stop taking serious measures to limit piracy of digital content.