On March 18, the Record Working Committee under China Audio & Video Association issued an "Open Letter on Protest against Baidu" and made formal declaration of war. Three days before, 50 writers published a joint statement denouncing Baidu for infringement. President of Dangdang.com Li Guoqing made a public statement on his micro-blog that Dangdang will stop advertising on Baidu from April 1 and Dangdang is willing to provide financial support to writers’ lawsuit against Baidu.

Vice President of the Record Working Committee under China Audio & Video Association Xu Xiaofeng introduced that after half year of investigation, they have collected sufficient evidence to prove Baidu’s infringing acts.

Xu said, Baidu has been earning huge advertising fees by providing hidden links to pirated sites for quite a long time, but Baidu has always claimed to be a simple platform with no services to piracy. In fact, Google has developed with the original music companies a mature benefit-sharing model. He said, "Google provides link services only to genuine websites and shares the advertising revenue generated from visits to original music sites in proportion. Baidu can also do the same but refuses to, which encourages piracy and infringement."

One of the initiators of the writer statement and President of Motie Company Chen Haobo disclosed that executives of Baidu have talked with him and the musician Gao Xiaosong and the two sides decided to hold negotiations before the Ching Ming Festival.

(Source:IP Channel of People's Daily Online)