Baidu.com Inc (
The Beijing Haidian People's Court awarded compensation of about 70,000 yuan (US$8,652) to Shanghai Busheng Music Culture Media Co (上海步升音樂文化傳播), EMI's China distribution partner and licensee, and ordered Baidu to remove links to the service, Chen Feihung, EMI's Southeast Asia vice president of new media, said yesterday. Cynthia He, investor relations manager at Baidu, couldn't be reached immediately for comment.
"This is good news and it sets a clear precedent for the other court cases," Chen said of the Sept. 16 ruling.
EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp and Universal Music Group have filed lawsuits against Baidu in the Beijing Intermediate Court, seeking to stop the company from offering free music downloads. Those cases are scheduled to start on Sept. 26 after an initial hearing on Friday, Chen said.
Restrictions on Baidu's services would make it more difficult for the Beijing-based company to maintain its lead over Google Inc, the world's biggest search engine company, in the world's biggest Internet market by users. Baidu shares plunged 28 percent on Sept. 14 after analysts from two firms that managed the company's initial share sale said the stock was overpriced, citing competition and the possibility of copyright infringement.
The music industry has filed more than 14,000 lawsuits in the US alone since September 2003 and settled about 3,200 of those, the Recording Industry Association of America's spokesman Jonathan Lamy said on Sept. 1.
Baidu shares dropped 4.5 percent to US$78.35 on Sept. 16. They had more than quadrupled since the company raised US$109 million selling shares last month. The company disclosed in its share sale prospectus that it was being sued by Shanghai Busheng and Beijing New Picture Film Co (北京新畫面影業), copyright owner of the movie House of Flying Daggers, for alleged copyright infringement.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”