With the recent ruling on MP3 copyright issues,
how blocking illegal downloads affects
Baidu has become important. As of Q2 2007, MP3
traffic was about 22% of overall traffic for
Baidu, as per iResearch (the company doesn't
release official stats). Alexa has the number
much lower at 8%, but isn't a reliable source
for China. Note MP3 traffic is going down not
just as a fraction of total traffic, but in
absolute terms as well.
The company has multiple choices now - fight it
out in the courts if sued again, and pay a paltry
fine the first time, if found guilty, and at the
same time strike licencing deals with music labels
pushing them into an ad-driven model. They already
have deals with EMI and Rock Music. Since these
cases take at least a year to get anywhere, most
likely nothing drastic is going to change now. The
company will probably reduce its MP3 dependence to
single digit percentage by the time the issue heats
up again.
iResearch stats
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