Yahoo China ordered to remove links to Web sites offering illegal music downloads

Yahoo China ordered to remove links to Web sites offering illegal music downloads

Chinese courts have now instructed the web company Yahoo! China that they would have to remove links pointing to web sites which are offering illegal music downloads. The company has also been ordered to pay about 200,000 yuan for making it easier for their visitors to download unlicensed songs by other sites.

But the courts did say that the company itself is not responsible for copyright infringement as all the music was downloaded from servers of third-party Web sites.

Yahoo! China responded by saying that they would file an appeal against this ruling. The company was sued by several music companies in the country which claimed that company helped in copyright infringement of copyright infringement.

Yahoo China has a music search service which enables the web users to get links to related music links related to their searched keywords. Interestingly, Chinese search engine company Baidu was charged with a similar lawsuit but they were cleared by the courts.