Baidu to remove pirated music links -FT
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-19 16:34

Baidu.com Inc., China's biggest Internet search engine and which is pursuing a U.S. public listing, has agreed to remove links to thousands of Internet sites offering pirated music, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Beijing-based Baidu agreed to take action following complaints by R2G, a tracker of piracy and manager of licenses for music publishers, R2G told the Financial Times.

R2G Chief Operating Officer Scarlett Li told the newspaper that Baidu had taken out Web links to more than 3,000 music files of a single popular Chinese song alone. She added that the search engine was also looking into links to more than 50,000 files.

A Baidu spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

Baidu last week said it was seeking an initial public offering worth up to $80 million, according to a prospectus filed with U.S. securities regulators. The company is 2.6-percent owned by global Internet search giant Google Inc.

According to its prospectus, Baidu, quoting market research, said that 22 percent of traffic on its Web site came from users of its search platform for MP3, a popular format for music files.

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