Publisher sues Baidu for literature piracy

• Source: Global Times
• [04:48 December 18 2009]
• Comments

"The Internet is like a transportation net; we need regulations to rule it. Writers should stand up for their own rights," Zhang told the Global Times.

SDL, which represents 800,000 writers, estimated that it loses more than 5 billion yuan ($732 million) each year due to the millions of websites carrying pirated content.

It also claimed that each of its top 10 popular novels were pirated more than 8 million times on average, amounting to 800 million yuan ($117 million) in financial losses if each novel is worth a symbolic one yuan.

The action is backed by the China Written Works Copyright Society, which gathered more than 800 writers in October to negotiate with search engine giant Google concerning its Google Library project, to protect their copyright.