Baidu: not a branch of the Chinese government - Kaiser Kuo

Image by Fantake via FlickrKaiser Kuo, rock musician and spokesperson for China's largest search engine Baidu sits down with Andy Atkins-Krueger of Search Engine Land to discuss six myths on Baidu, worth to dispel. Here, on Baidu's relationship with the Chinese government. Andy Atkins-Krueger:

Who owns Baidu? The Chinese government perhaps? And does the Chinese government make it so much easier for Baidu to succeed than Google? It would be fair to say that Kaiser Kuo was particularly vexed on behalf of his company that people might genuinely believe the Chinese government was “tilting the field in favor of Baidu!” He explains, “There’s no government shareholding, there are no communist party executives placed in charge of things here, no shadow board – Baidu operates fully at arms length from the Chinese government in just the same way as any typical western company would.” He adds, “There are actually two state-owned search engines which compete with us – so we definitely aren’t getting special favors.”

More in Search Engine Land, on intellectual property rights, censorship and the company's business practises. Kaiser Kuo is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Legal reform and more needed for innovation - Paul French

 Paul French

The lack of an independent legal system is holding back China's innovative power; protecting the rights of entrepreneurs and innovators is key, business analyst Paul French tells in NPR. And then there is social welfare, health care pensions and a few other things.

"If you're going to innovate, if you're going to be entrepreneurial, if you're going to create and invent things, you need a legal system that can protect your invention," says Paul French, who works for the Shanghai consulting firm Access Asia and has lived in China for nearly 20 years.

"The government should take the lead on that, and an independent legal system needs to be able to do that, and to respect the rights of entrepreneurs and innovators," he says. "And at the moment, that is simply not the case here."

French says that intellectual property rights is one of many issues that need to be dealt with if China is going to move up to the next level.

"The big picture would be the environment; the big picture would be social welfare — health care and pensions," he says. "Then it would be education, and the ability for students and academics to challenge the consensus, to challenge the official version of things."

Continuing down his list of reforms needed in China, French says, "We need to have freedom of the press, so that confidence in the stock market can be maintained. We're going to need better ethical and corporate governance, and that's going to mean a lot more transparency, both from government and from corporations."

Any one of those issues on its own would be hard enough to reform; the fact that China needs to address all of them is a monumental and risky task. Modern Chinese society is simply becoming too complex to be contained within the old political and social framework.

More in NPR

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting and conference, do get in touch.

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No room for high-risk innovation - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber by Fantake via Flickr

Is China becoming an innovative force? Arthur Kroeber belongs to the bears in this debate, he tells Reuters, as the academic climate in the country is too much constrained. Not only lack of intellectual property protection and a failing educational system holds innovation back.

"There's a political constraint, too," said Arthur Kroeber, managing director of GaveKal-Dragonomics in Beijing. "In the long run, innovation arises in societies that are really open, where you can discuss anything. And China doesn't have that kind of political culture yet."..
"For most Chinese companies the aim is to provide 80 percent of global best quality but at 50 percent of the cost," said Kroeber. "If you can make money doing that - and many do - you really have no incentive to invest in high-risk innovation."

More in Reuters.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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• Most-sought speakers in April 2011 (chinaherald.net)

Is Baidu doing the right thing on intellectual property rights?

Image via CrunchBase

A class action by 40 Chinese writers against China's leading search engine Baidu for infringement of their copyright attracted my attention for a whole set of reasons. Here is the AFP-report about the issue.

First, Baidu has for ages been accused of not minding any intellectual property rights and gaining in that way an unfair advantage on competitors, especially competitors like Google, who claims they stick to international practices to protect IPR. They were recently even put on a blacklist by the US government.

Second, - and you should see the next two also as disclosures - Baidu's quoted spokesperson Kaiser Kuo is also a speaker at my China Speakers Bureau, so it would be interesting to see his position, in an issue where he has been writing about as journalist an commentator in the past.

Third, I'm currently finishing a book on the Hypergrid Business, virtual worlds and their meaning for businesses, and my co-author Maria Korovov has just been writing some smart stuff on what online companies should do to avoid liability in this field. Not surprisingly, intellectual property rights is a key issue for companies going online.

From AFP:

More than 40 writers, including controversial blogger Han Han, have signed a letter claiming Baidu provided their works for free to download on its online library Baidu Wenku without their permission.

"Baidu has become a totally corrupt thief company," the authors said in the letter posted Tuesday on the website of government-linked China Written Works Copyright Society.

"It stole our works, our rights, our property and has turned Baidu Wenku into a marketplace of stolen goods," it said.

What is Kaiser's answer, again according to AFP?

Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo said the search engine "attaches great importance to intellectual property rights protection" and had deleted "tens of thousands of infringing items" uploaded by web users.

"We promised that authors or copyright holders can report problematic content found on Baidu Library to the complaint centre ... and we will delete infringing content within 48 hours," Kuo said in a statement Wednesday.

In a disclaimer on its website, Baidu said users who uploaded the files must take on all liabilities and be responsible for compensation in any copyright disputes.

The writers say this is nonsense, and they claim Baidu should take responsibility. They want Baidu to ask permission for publication in advance. But when we read Maria Korolov's recent piece on how to deal with intellectual property rights, we see Baidu is on the right side (apologies for the hypergrid jargon):

But larger grids, such as OSGrid, InWorldz, and SpotOn3D have the same problem as Facebook — though not necessarily on the same scale. Yet.

As a result, they have copyright policies in place and have posted contact information for copyright infringement complaints.

What happens if a grid posts a policy — and then ignores all takedown requests? By not following its own policy, the grid will lose its status as a “safe haven” and can become subject to lawsuits.

InWorldz, one of the most popular commercial OpenSim grids, has filed a designated agent form with the U.S. Copyright Office, a PDF which you can see here. It names Beth Reischl as the designated agent, and the contact email for DMCA complaints is dmca-support@inworldz.com. InWorldz was the first OpenSim grid to officially register in this way — a sign of its commitment to copyright protection. As a result of this and other measures, it became a popular destination for virtual goods merchants and has grown quickly over the past few months.

Another commercial grid, SpotOn3D, has also filed its designated agent form. The grid is owned by PowerSynch LLC, and its designated agent is Stevan Lieberman, one of the founders of the grid. The contact email address is questions@aplegal.com.

Many grids haven’t filed a designated agent form, but do have policies posted on their websites.

The OSGrid has a nice page up for DMCA violations, which you can see here. OSGrid has an email address set aside for these complaints, dmca@osgrid.org. Ansky Grid has a similar DMCA policy in place, and complaints should go to dmca@AnSky.ca.

In short: you cannot blame online publishers like Baidu for all infringements of intellectual property, but they should have procedures in place and act fast if they get complaints. That is the line in the US, and seems pretty reasonable to me. Maybe others can chip in on the Chinese legal system, but Baidu seems to stick to international accepted procedures.
(Earlier published at the Fons Tuinstra's home.)

Related articles

• Japanese Publishers want Baidu to remove Pirated Manga (penn-olson.com)
• Chinese writers call Baidu a "marketplace of stolen goods" (thenextweb.com)
• US says China's Baidu, Taobao markets for piracy (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Baidu put on US pirate-goods list (bbc.co.uk)
• Chinese Internet giants identified as 'notorious markets' for piracy (thenextweb.com)

Mattel has another Barbie problem

Danwei points at another problems toy giant Mattel is having with Barbie, although it is not the one with lead in its paint as far as I can see. Although China Barbie focuses more on an adult audience, Mattels seems to think that we might be confused.

Without the help of Mattel we would never have found this site, so, thank you. Mattel only wants a 100,000 USD in compensation, that is pretty low for this high-end promotion.

Do you know this thief?

Earlier this week Chinabiz published this article I wrote for them. Now, I look at my radar screen and see that this guy has republished my article. He did not quote, but republished the whole article without permission and even without mentioning my name or the original source. That is stealing my intellectual property. How should I deal with this guy?He is a nasty thief and at least no honest people should do business with him, do you agree?

Hollywood threathens China with boycot

No love from Hollywood

With Silicon Hutong I could not stop laughing when I learned the movie industry in Hollywood is actually threathening China with a boycot unless something is done about the piracy.

Two days ago, MPAA Chief Dan Glickman (aka, Hollywood's hired gun in DC) told The Hollywood Reporter that if China didn't do something about ending piracy, the industry could choose to boycott China. I don't expect an official response - I think, once again, the government officials with remit over Hollywood's fortunes in China are probably too paralyzed with paroxysms of mirth to compose a response.

Silicon Hutong explains them why this threat is nonsense.

Google sorry for stealing

Google in China has apologized to Sohu.com for 'lending' the database of Sogou, its input system for pinyin. Google offered their excuses just ahead of a press conference by Sohu where it wanted to vilify its competitor for stealing. The ongoing discussion will get an interesting twist here.

Has Google Pinyin been stolen from a competitor?

A debate is emerging on the internet whether Google has for its newly released pinyin input system stolen the vocabulary of its competitor Sogou. When the US search engine would have committed such a gross infringement of the intellectual property of a competitor, even though it would have been done by local staff, that would put the company in a difficult position.
There are two different takes up to now. Yee and others point at awkward similar mistakes Google seems to have copied from the vocabulary of Sogou. The fact that Google has failed to respond to the accusations is already seen as an admission of guild.

China Web2.0 Review is an authority here and writes:

My take is that further discussion on this similarity case is not necessary. If Google really infringes Sogou’s intellectual property rights, they would sue Google. Is it possible that they all licensed vocabulary library from the same source? You will never know it.

I tend to disagree with both at this stage. The pinyin system seem to be much more than a vocabulary and you would have to compare more than only the vocabulary to substantiate the accusation - although Google does seem to have a problem here.
The fact that Google did not react at all is of course not good, but if they would have denied guild after the first rumors would have emerged, you would know they would not take the accusation serious at all. Google needs to have a thorough internal investigation, and they could have told us that.
I also do not agree with the argument that because Sogou has not started a court case yet, there is probably no case. Also Sogou needs to investigate the case and the systems is only out. Preparing a court case takes a long time and does not yet indicate that Sogou has already taken a position here.