Thaindian News

Beijing, Mar.28 (ANI): Several Chinese writers have rejected an offer by country’s most popular search engine, Baidu.com, in their ongoing dispute about alleged copyright infringements.

Earlier, around 50 Chinese writers accused Baidu of scanning free unauthorized books and uploading them to its online library.

Writers have also complained that representatives of Baidu were arrogant in negotiations with the writers and refused to admit any act of piracy had taken place.

The website, which has been under huge pressure recently from the ongoing row apologized to the writers and issued an announcement that said it would delete “contents that may have been pirated” within three days.

Zhang Hongbo, deputy director general of the China Written Works Copyright Society, said that the announcement only apologized to the extent of moral doubt but they want the company to admit their copyright violations.

He said his organization also wants Baidu to find a solution that protects the writers’ interests and warned that there will be more attempts to fight the piracy of intellectual property if the website ignores writers’ request.

Shen Haobo, an independent publisher said the writers refused to accept Baidu’s announcement because it did not admit the site had engaged in piracy.

“The announcement indicated that there’s a chance they will reestablish the free online unauthorized offering of stories and books in the future at sometime,” The China Daily quoted Shen, as saying.

However, a spokesperson of the search engine has said that Internet users uploaded the unauthorized works on the online library, without prior approval from the authors.

After receiving requests from writers to remove their copyrighted works, Baidu has sped up its process of checking for unauthorized items. The number of free literature documents in Baidu Wenku had decreased from 2.9 million to one million. (ANI)