Web Copyright Law "Vindicated" Search Engine

Yesterday, China's "Web Copyright Law" formally established. According to executive order #468 signed by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, China's "Regulation of Copyright Protection On Information Dissemination Through Internet" will be in effect start on July 1, 2006.

After carefully read through it, we can see the regulation is intended to fully protect the public's right to legally obtain information and at the same time to protect the author's right sufficiently. It is also intended to protect technological development and innovations on the internet. For many judges who are having hard time to "grasp" the many cases, this regulation will give them the interpretation.

For the many web MP3 cases that are boiling over in the legal world, the regulation is sending a clearer signial. Illegal dissemination is guilty while legal search is not. It intends to hit hard on those who illegally spread music files while still protect the public's rights to search and download music legally.

The search engines led by Baidu and Yahoo can now feel a sense of relief - their hugely powerful search engines can index large amount of music links and thus regarded as violators of "sacred music copyrights" by many record companines. The new regulation will wash them clean of the "unrighted wrongs". Based on the new regulation, search engines will retain the right to provide music links searched by the internet users. However, since search engine itself can not differentiate legally from illegal download links, the new regulations also award copyright owners protections. For copyright owners, once they find any illegal download links, they can require the search engines to remove these links timely.

Most traditional record companies lauded the new regulation. The wonderful music products from their hard work will finally get "organizational" protections. While still, some lawsuits filed by the record companies against the search engines will likely be affected by the new regulation. Such as the pending case filed by Shanghai Busheng against Baidu which has entered the second phase may be affected. Currently, it is under court mediation (Both sides agreed to accept court mediation in the appeals court). In reference to the new regulations that is clear on the basic principle - seach engine itself is innocent, the final outcome will be influenced by the new regulation.

Busheng's case could become a landmark case for online music. Though many record companies are blaming the search engines for the illegal activities, not many other companies will likely to imitate Busheng to "pay lawyers to buy publicity".

The publish of the new regulation will inevitably push traditional record companies to cooperation from confliction. From the experiences of the US record companies, every one of the biggies has gone through being annoyed, to exclusion, to final acception to jointly develop music sales on the web with music websites.In the US, online music sales has become necessary source of revenue for the record companies. Web operators usually pay 14 cents license fee to play a song for each listener. Some music stores developed by high tech companies such as Apple's iTune has born. Customers pay 99 cents for each song they download. There are over three million songs downloaded every week. The hot selling service also promoted Apple's sale of MP3 player, the iPod. It truely realized the win-win situation for both record company and website.

In fact, in China, there are already small number of record companies are collaborating with webistes to promote online sales of music. For example, TRMusic(the largest Chinese record company) has had tremendous success by joining with Baidu to sell the singles by Supergirl Yuchun Li online.

Industrial analysts think, as dealing with high tech websites, Chinese record companies are in a psycological transition period from conflicts to coorperation. The establishment of the new regulation will not only underline the determination of the Chinese government to connect China's IPR protection laws with the international laws, but also will push the traditional IPR owning businesses to change their way of operations and move onto a win-win combination by joining hands with search engines and other high tech industries.

By Lu Peng

New Regulation in China No Effect on Baidu

Bloomberg published an article quoted Mr. Yu from Analysys with following statement:

"Baidu will be under a lot of pressure to stop offering links to illegal MP3 files and may have to stop their MP3 search service,'' said Edward Yu, chief executive officer of Beijing- based research company Analysys International.

The new regulations could cut the number of Baidu's users, affecting the company's ability to sell advertising, Yu said.

However, it is biased view. From the original published regulation:

Copyright owners could send those breaching copyright a written notice and ask Internet providers to delete their works or links to their works, the regulations said.

Internet providers should delete the content and links upon receiving the written notice from the copyright holders.

The new regulation has put no burden on Baidu at all. Baidu has in fact put up a statement almost exactly like the one in the regulation on their MP3 website about 6 months ago.

Huatong140 Index added

We have added another index, Huatong140 Index weekday survey.

Huatong150 Index surveys will be conducted during weekends, while the Huatong140 Index surveys will be conducted during weekdays.

The Huatong140 Index consists the majority of keywords already in the Huatong150 Index. What makes this Index different is all the keywords must have minimum 30 bidders rather than 15. Some keywords with less than 30 bidders were removed, and some keywords with much higher number of bidders were added.

Since these keywords are more contested, the average of Huatong140 Index is higher. The Huatong50 and Huatong100 Indexes are retired.

Huatong140 Index weekday keywords pricing survey started on May 29, 2006. The initial value of the Index is 4.5581.

As we have pointed out before, the average cost per click was only about 95 cents to 1 yuan. So the Huatong140 Index consists keywords that are more at the high end.

Both Huatong150 and Huatong140 Indexes are keywords spreaded widely over keywords that impact people's life the most and are important to the nation's economy. Areas such as baby supply, furniture, electronics, education, legal, industry, business, travel, home improvement, trade are all included but only maximum of three to five are limited in each area. The keywords are repeatedly tested to find the most popular ones and thus many keywords with the highest number of bidders were selected. The selection is definitely biased towards higher prices than the actual average that Baidu may have recorded.

The following table are the initial values

Keyword	# bids	Top bid	2nd bid	3rd bid	Average(5/29)
1	36	0.76	0.75	0.69	0.73
2	32	0.78	0.77	0.77	0.77
3	55	1.01	0.89	0.88	0.93
4	64	1.12	1.04	1.04	1.07
5	42	1.10	1.09	1.07	1.09
6	81	1.29	1.29	1.28	1.29
7	33	1.60	1.51	1.38	1.50
8	44	2.16	1.21	1.20	1.52
9	53	1.57	1.57	1.56	1.57
10	33	1.58	1.57	1.56	1.57
11	35	2.00	1.57	1.52	1.70
12	48	1.73	1.71	1.67	1.70
13	33	1.72	1.71	1.71	1.71
14	44	1.89	1.86	1.40	1.72
15	87	1.73	1.71	1.71	1.72
16	75	1.85	1.84	1.48	1.72
17	43	1.73	1.73	1.72	1.73
18	84	1.75	1.74	1.74	1.74
19	62	1.84	1.82	1.75	1.80
20	50	2.52	1.50	1.50	1.84
21	65	1.90	1.88	1.87	1.88
22	57	1.95	1.94	1.92	1.94
23	43	2.02	2.01	2.01	2.01
24	71	2.05	2.05	2.04	2.05
25	66	2.08	2.04	2.03	2.05
26	98	2.12	2.11	2.10	2.11
27	67	2.13	2.11	2.10	2.11
28	58	2.16	2.16	2.15	2.16
29	34	2.17	2.16	2.15	2.16
30	48	2.24	2.13	2.12	2.16
31	35	2.22	2.22	2.06	2.17
32	80	2.44	2.13	2.12	2.23
33	99	3.50	1.69	1.51	2.23
34	79	2.28	2.23	2.22	2.24
35	69	3.00	2.50	1.32	2.27
36	71	2.32	2.32	2.31	2.32
37	58	2.44	2.44	2.43	2.44
38	57	2.50	2.50	2.38	2.46
39	32	3.01	3.00	1.58	2.53
40	38	2.56	2.54	2.51	2.54
41	58	2.55	2.54	2.54	2.54
42	64	2.55	2.54	2.54	2.54
43	40	2.57	2.57	2.53	2.56
44	36	2.73	2.72	2.41	2.62
45	82	2.64	2.63	2.63	2.63
46	77	2.80	2.56	2.55	2.64
47	51	2.65	2.64	2.63	2.64
48	66	2.74	2.61	2.60	2.65
49	69	3.21	3.20	1.54	2.65
50	49	3.00	2.57	2.56	2.71
51	92	2.79	2.79	2.78	2.79
52	43	3.01	2.76	2.64	2.80
53	43	2.94	2.90	2.62	2.82
54	210	3.04	3.02	2.72	2.93
55	84	2.94	2.93	2.92	2.93
56	31	4.00	2.50	2.32	2.94
57	71	3.04	3.00	2.86	2.97
58	72	3.06	3.03	3.02	3.04
59	70	3.05	3.05	3.03	3.04
60	126	3.07	3.06	3.01	3.05
61	44	3.11	3.10	2.98	3.06
62	52	3.11	3.10	3.10	3.10
63	86	3.13	3.12	3.11	3.12
64	171	3.20	3.19	3.06	3.15
65	96	3.30	3.10	3.09	3.16
66	102	3.25	3.21	3.08	3.18
67	37	3.23	3.18	3.17	3.19
68	58	3.37	3.21	3.11	3.23
69	42	3.27	3.26	3.25	3.26
70	59	3.50	3.30	3.01	3.27
71	58	3.51	3.32	3.00	3.28
72	83	3.50	3.48	3.05	3.34
73	101	3.88	3.65	2.73	3.42
74	86	3.45	3.44	3.42	3.44
75	70	3.61	3.40	3.34	3.45
76	193	3.50	3.46	3.44	3.47
77	63	3.51	3.50	3.48	3.50
78	78	3.58	3.57	3.51	3.55
79	70	5.00	3.02	3.01	3.68
80	153	3.68	3.68	3.67	3.68
81	61	3.70	3.69	3.66	3.68
82	84	5.00	3.10	3.07	3.72
83	82	3.82	3.80	3.79	3.80
84	33	3.85	3.85	3.83	3.84
85	66	4.08	4.07	3.75	3.97
86	50	4.02	4.01	4.00	4.01
87	102	5.00	3.66	3.66	4.11
88	55	10.00	1.25	1.24	4.16
89	104	4.25	4.24	4.15	4.21
90	159	4.30	4.30	4.29	4.30
91	44	4.40	4.39	4.33	4.37
92	33	4.39	4.38	4.38	4.38
93	59	4.40	4.39	4.39	4.39
94	45	4.47	4.47	4.46	4.47
95	33	7.50	3.00	2.90	4.47
96	194	5.23	4.21	4.09	4.51
97	157	5.08	4.24	4.23	4.52
98	104	4.70	4.70	4.58	4.66
99	51	4.99	4.99	4.95	4.98
100	38	5.01	5.00	5.00	5.00
101	53	5.02	5.01	5.00	5.01
102	114	5.60	5.05	5.03	5.23
103	94	5.44	5.28	5.26	5.33
104	83	5.51	5.51	5.00	5.34
105	68	6.60	6.00	3.93	5.51
106	57	6.07	5.99	5.50	5.85
107	152	6.04	6.03	6.03	6.03
108	133	10.00	5.00	3.40	6.13
109	79	6.26	6.25	6.25	6.25
110	46	6.55	6.51	5.76	6.27
111	48	6.55	6.54	6.39	6.49
112	126	6.82	6.81	6.80	6.81
113	68	7.08	7.08	7.07	7.08
114	95	7.10	7.09	7.08	7.09
115	85	7.66	7.65	7.64	7.65
116	64	8.00	7.87	7.86	7.91
117	181	8.57	8.54	7.02	8.04
118	91	8.06	8.04	8.04	8.05
119	49	8.23	8.23	8.22	8.23
120	47	8.60	8.59	8.58	8.59
121	105	8.67	8.65	8.65	8.66
122	65	8.90	8.70	8.51	8.70
123	161	15.97	5.16	5.15	8.76
124	50	9.10	9.10	9.06	9.09
125	52	12.00	8.02	7.52	9.18
126	33	9.41	9.32	9.25	9.33
127	53	9.57	9.45	9.13	9.38
128	60	10.00	9.50	9.18	9.56
129	197	9.65	9.65	9.64	9.65
130	141	10.03	10.02	10.00	10.02
131	89	10.11	10.11	10.11	10.11
132	62	10.51	10.10	9.93	10.18
133	164	10.98	10.97	10.50	10.82
134	107	11.00	10.80	10.79	10.86
135	55	10.99	10.89	10.88	10.92
136	42	11.50	11.20	11.10	11.27
137	69	11.50	11.50	11.49	11.50
138	60	14.50	14.50	13.20	14.07
139	65	19.93	15.30	15.20	16.81
140	51	26.01	25.00	25.01	25.34
				average	4.5581

Update on Huatong Index

One week after the establishment of Huatong50 and Huatong100 Index, we did a survey today.

There are 46 bids increased in prices, and 34 bids decreased in prices.

Huatong100 average price dropped by 1.37%, while the Huatong50 Index with lower price bracket has gone up 9%.

After we study the price movement for a week, we decided to make some changes. First, we take out a dozen bids with number of bidders less than 15. Secondly, we added more keywords to increase the size of index to 150 keywords.

We tried hard to make sure the majority of the keywords are concentrated in the area that affect people's daily life the most.

We'll also try to update the new index, Huatong150 once in a week or two weeks. Due to the fluctuation between weekdays and weekends, we'll also try to conduct survey during midweek, but less frequently.

Today, May 27, 2006, the Huatong150 Index starts at 3.6914.

The components of the Huatong150 Index will stays the same for the forseeable future.

Keyword	# bids	Top bid	2nd bid	3rd bid	Average(5/27)
1	25	0.61	0.61	0.60	0.61
2	25	0.61	0.61	0.60	0.61
3	36	0.76	0.75	0.69	0.73
4	26	0.80	0.79	0.65	0.75
5	19	0.82	0.81	0.66	0.76
6	32	0.78	0.77	0.77	0.77
7	21	1.00	0.69	0.68	0.79
8	26	0.81	0.79	0.78	0.79
9	21	0.81	0.80	0.79	0.80
10	20	0.83	0.82	0.78	0.81
11	23	0.84	0.83	0.82	0.83
12	25	1.00	0.99	0.58	0.86
13	20	0.88	0.87	0.85	0.87
14	55	1.01	0.88	0.87	0.92
15	29	1.00	1.00	0.92	0.97
16	42	1.09	1.07	1.06	1.07
17	64	1.12	1.10	1.04	1.09
18	81	1.29	1.29	1.28	1.29
19	30	1.39	1.38	1.14	1.30
20	19	1.50	1.40	1.05	1.32
21	20	1.34	1.33	1.32	1.33
22	22	1.63	1.62	0.74	1.33
23	50	1.50	1.50	1.00	1.33
24	27	1.38	1.33	1.32	1.34
25	27	1.51	1.41	1.40	1.44
26	33	1.60	1.51	1.38	1.50
27	19	2.06	2.01	0.46	1.51
28	26	1.54	1.54	1.53	1.54
29	53	1.56	1.55	1.50	1.54
30	25	3.11	0.83	0.81	1.58
31	25	1.61	1.61	1.60	1.61
32	87	1.73	1.71	1.61	1.68
33	35	2.00	1.57	1.50	1.69
34	48	1.71	1.70	1.66	1.69
35	43	1.73	1.73	1.72	1.73
36	84	1.75	1.73	1.73	1.74
37	33	1.76	1.76	1.75	1.76
38	44	2.17	2.16	1.21	1.85
39	62	1.85	1.85	1.84	1.85
40	44	1.88	1.88	1.86	1.87
41	65	1.90	1.88	1.87	1.88
42	25	2.09	2.09	1.55	1.91
43	57	1.93	1.92	1.90	1.92
44	23	4.12	0.88	0.86	1.95
45	126	3.06	1.50	1.43	2.00
46	43	2.01	2.00	2.00	2.00
47	75	2.32	1.86	1.86	2.01
48	20	2.03	2.03	2.01	2.02
49	71	2.05	2.03	2.03	2.04
50	66	2.08	2.07	2.04	2.06
51	69	3.20	1.54	1.52	2.09
52	98	2.11	2.10	2.09	2.10
53	67	2.13	2.11	2.10	2.11
54	34	2.16	2.15	2.14	2.15
55	58	2.16	2.15	2.15	2.15
56	48	2.24	2.13	2.12	2.16
57	80	2.44	2.12	2.06	2.21
58	79	2.28	2.23	2.23	2.25
59	71	2.32	2.32	2.31	2.32
60	69	2.40	2.30	2.30	2.33
61	25	2.55	2.25	2.24	2.35
62	58	2.43	2.40	2.40	2.41
63	57	2.50	2.50	2.38	2.46
64	36	2.73	2.41	2.40	2.51
65	32	3.01	3.00	1.57	2.53
66	58	2.55	2.54	2.52	2.54
67	38	2.55	2.54	2.53	2.54
68	40	2.57	2.53	2.53	2.54
69	64	2.58	2.55	2.54	2.56
70	77	2.60	2.58	2.56	2.58
71	59	3.00	2.90	1.96	2.62
72	82	2.64	2.63	2.63	2.63
73	51	2.65	2.64	2.63	2.64
74	66	2.74	2.61	2.60	2.65
75	27	2.67	2.67	2.66	2.67
76	43	3.01	2.76	2.63	2.80
77	84	2.94	2.93	2.92	2.93
78	31	4.00	2.50	2.32	2.94
79	210	3.04	3.02	2.80	2.95
80	71	3.04	3.00	2.86	2.97
81	49	3.02	3.01	3.00	3.01
82	70	3.05	3.05	3.03	3.04
83	72	3.06	3.04	3.03	3.04
84	44	3.11	3.10	3.04	3.08
85	52	3.11	3.11	3.10	3.11
86	86	3.13	3.12	3.10	3.12
87	102	3.22	3.21	3.08	3.17
88	37	3.23	3.18	3.18	3.20
89	171	3.22	3.21	3.20	3.21
90	58	3.37	3.36	3.21	3.31
91	83	3.50	3.48	3.04	3.34
92	26	3.43	3.42	3.41	3.42
93	86	3.44	3.42	3.41	3.42
94	193	3.45	3.44	3.43	3.44
95	70	3.61	3.40	3.33	3.45
96	63	3.48	3.48	3.45	3.47
97	78	3.57	3.56	3.51	3.55
98	102	3.63	3.63	3.62	3.63
99	61	3.68	3.67	3.66	3.67
100	70	5.00	3.01	3.00	3.67
101	33	7.00	2.10	2.00	3.70
102	84	5.00	3.10	3.06	3.72
103	82	3.82	3.80	3.79	3.80
104	22	10.00	0.85	0.60	3.82
105	194	4.21	4.09	3.16	3.82
106	27	4.61	4.60	2.51	3.91
107	66	4.08	4.07	3.75	3.97
108	28	4.03	4.02	3.95	4.00
109	50	4.02	4.02	4.01	4.02
110	55	10.00	1.24	1.23	4.16
111	20	5.01	5.00	2.48	4.16
112	104	4.25	4.24	4.20	4.23
113	59	4.39	4.32	4.05	4.25
114	159	4.31	4.30	4.30	4.30
115	44	4.50	4.40	4.39	4.43
116	157	5.08	4.23	4.21	4.51
117	104	4.70	4.70	4.57	4.66
118	53	5.00	4.82	4.81	4.88
119	38	5.00	5.00	4.99	5.00
120	51	5.01	5.00	4.99	5.00
121	161	5.15	5.15	5.14	5.15
122	114	6.95	4.55	4.01	5.17
123	99	10.00	3.50	2.51	5.34
124	94	5.50	5.38	5.26	5.38
125	83	5.49	5.49	5.48	5.49
126	19	6.12	6.09	5.00	5.74
127	152	6.04	6.03	6.03	6.03
128	79	6.23	6.23	6.23	6.23
129	48	6.55	6.54	6.39	6.49
130	68	6.62	6.61	6.60	6.61
131	52	7.52	7.51	4.84	6.62
132	126	6.82	6.81	6.78	6.80
133	68	7.08	7.07	7.00	7.05
134	181	8.55	7.02	7.01	7.53
135	133	10.01	10.00	3.40	7.80
136	64	8.00	7.87	7.86	7.91
137	91	8.06	8.04	8.04	8.05
138	65	10.00	8.57	8.56	9.04
139	53	9.45	9.10	9.06	9.20
140	50	9.50	9.06	9.05	9.20
141	33	9.41	9.33	9.32	9.35
142	60	10.00	9.15	9.17	9.44
143	197	9.63	9.62	9.62	9.62
144	89	10.11	10.10	10.10	10.10
145	141	11.00	10.01	10.00	10.34
146	28	11.16	11.16	11.16	11.16
147	42	11.50	11.20	11.06	11.25
148	69	13.08	11.43	11.43	11.98
149	60	14.50	13.20	13.18	13.63
150	51	25.01	25.00	25.00	25.00
				Average(￥)	3.6914