A group of music companies are preparing a lawsuit against Yahoo China for copyright infringement as part of the industry's efforts to crack down on piracy, Reuters reported.
“Yahoo China has been blatantly infringing our members' rights. We have started the process and as far as we're concerned we're on the track to litigation,” said John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the music industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Yahoo China is a partnership between Internet giant Yahoo, which owns 40 percent of the business, and China's Alibaba.com. The IFPI has blasted Yahoo China's search engine for providing links to Web sites that offer unlicensed music downloads. The group estimates that about 85 percent of all music consumed in China is pirated.
