By Herman Lai, posted Dec 21, 2011 at 10:30 AM, 546 views,

The US Government Still Consider Taobao A “Pirate”

Two of the China’s most-popular websites, Baidu.com and Taobao.com were named “notorious markets” by the U.S in March this year. And today, the United States has removed Baidu from the black list, but Taobao is still on.

Baidu had previously been criticized for hosting download links to pirated songs via its search engine, but after the company made agreements with three of the world’s largest music companies, the search giant deemed to help sustain piracy and counterfeiting of intellectual property and its name has been cleared from the “notorious markets” list. Here is what the Baidu’s spokesman said to expressed satisfaction with the decision:

“We are pleased that the significance of the deal with the major record labels has been recognized.”

As for Alibaba, China’s biggest online retailer, the company remained among more than 30 online and physical markets worldwide identified in the report for helping the illegal sale of material protected by copyright or patents. Several commentators reported that pirated and counterfeit goods continue to be widely available on China-based Taobao. While stakeholders report that Taobao continues to make significant efforts to address the problem, they recognize that much remains to be done. It might have been a rough year for Alibaba. At the start of the year, a scandal broke out that widespread fraud was found on Alibaba’s online marketplace. Then, they found themselves named on U.S. “notorious market” list. In October, Alibaba’s CEO Jack Ma expressed his interest to buy the entire Yahoo in order to expand its business, but they still haven’t get Yahoo to nod. In November, Alibaba’s B2C e-commerce platform Taobao encountered a significant challenge from thousands of small business owners. And now, the company is still recognize by the U.S. as one of the major channel that sell pirate goods.

The report also cited two Chinese music websites, Sogou Mp3 and Gougou as providing “deep linking” services to copyrighted music. Four of the 15 listed physical notorious markets for piracy are located in China.

Source: Bloomberg