Tudou Accuses Youku of Copyright Infringement
Sohu IT, 12/16/11
Chinese online video site operator Tudou (Nasdaq: TUDO) today announced that it has reported rival Youku (NYSE: YOKU) for alleged IPR infringement to various Chinese government agencies. Tudou filed its report with China's State Council, Taiwan Affairs Office, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Ministry of Culture, State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), and General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), calling for them to penalize Youku for copyright infringement. Tudou also appealed to international IPR protection entities to investigate and punish Youku.
Tudou alleges that for nearly a month, Youku has repeatedly ignored requests by Tudou to take down episodes of Taiwanese talk show "Kangxi Lai Le," for which Tudou owns the exclusive mainland China online broadcasting rights. Tudou stated that to date it has never re-licensed the show, but all other online video platforms have promptly deleted the content upon request with the exception of Youku. According to initial statistics from Tudou, over 80,000 links to pirated content have been discovered on Youku, the overwhelming majority of which were directly uploaded by Youku editors and recommended to users.
Tudou CEO Gary Wang said that as video industry rules have matured, major platforms have all adhered to principles calling for paying licensed content and deleting pirated content when notified by copyright holders.
Keywords: Gary Wang content Internet IPR infringement online video Tudou Youku copyright MIIT Ministry of Culture SARFT State Council broadcasting rights GAPP YOKU TUDO law litigation regulation
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