BEIJING, April 11 -- Eleven of world biggest music companies are suing Yahoo!'s China division for about 5.5 million yuan (710,690 U.S. dollars) for music copyright infringement.

    Beijing Star Daily reported the music companies include EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal.

    The companies said starting on April 10, 2006, the parent company of Yahoo!'s China division, Alibaba, had provided download links for 223 songs owned by them.

    They brought a lawsuit to the Beijing Second Intermediate Court, saying Yahoo! infringed on the copyrights of their music by illegally providing lyrics, music and mobile phone rings downloading services related to the music.

    Yahoo! China defended itself, saying that as a search engine, it should not be held liable for content provided by its users. What it publishes are links, not downloadable content. For this case, it refused to compensate the music companies.

    The court has not yet handed down its sentence. The music giants once brought a similar lawsuit against China's biggest search engine, Baidu, in 2005, but the case was later dismissed.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)