Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) continues to climb higher midday, notching new session highs ; now up $1.16 to $138.97. Strength being attributed to an WSJ article that states China’s online search provider has reached a deal with a local music copyright association, resolving years of tension with the music industry over the company’s music-search service.
Baidu said Friday it will begin to compensate songwriters belonging to the Music Copyright Society of China when users download or stream their songs from the co.’s website.
Baidu and the Music Copyright Society didn’t disclose the financial terms of their deal.
The move comes after Baidu earlier this week said it removed 2.8 millions of files from another service, its document-sharing website Baidu Wenku, known as Baidu Library in English, after Chinese authors accused the search engine of distributing their work without permission and demanded compensation.
On March 15, a group of Chinese authors had complained in an online petition about Baidu’s flagrant copyright infringement, stating the company had [via CBR] “deteriorated into a burglar company that stole our property and stole out rights.”
Baidu responded by apologizing to writers, promising to remove infringing content and saying it would shut down Wenku if problems persisted.
At last check, BIDU was up 0.86%, to $138.99. Day’s range: $137.30 – $139.10 ;Volume: 4.2 million shares traded as of 1:16 p.m. EST vs 6.8 million daily (3m) average.
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