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Baidupedia in Business Week

Business Week has a writeup of Baidu’s Wikipedia “competitor” Baidu Baike, which is a creation of the largest search engine company in China. It says it’s been around for 19 months, and lifts content from Wikipedia’s Chinese edition without proper attribution and inclusion of the GNU Free Documentation License. Since Chinese Wikipedia is blocked in China, it’s no surprise Baidu Baike is the most popular online encyclopedia in China.

Today, Baidu Baike is the leading encyclopedia online in China, and the second-largest Net encyclopedia anywhere, after the English-language version of Wikipedia. But the company has drawn fire for its success from some critics who say it has been built on copyright violations and complicity with government censorship. Wikipedia clearly believes that Baidu has crossed an ethical line, although the American company is planning no legal action to stop what it believes is plagiarism on the part of Baidu. “We only appeal to their moral judgment about what is right,” says Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, in an e-mail interview.

When I met one of Baidu’s program managers a few months ago, I told her I’d be interested in talking to folks from Baidu Baike, just to let them know how to conform to the GFDL. It was actually fine to copy Wikipedia’s content, and also to censor stuff they don’t like, as long as they complied with the GFDL.

She got back to me saying Baidu’s folks on that side were “scared” of talking to folks involved with Wikipedia, after the strong comments by Wikimedia Foundation chairperson Florence Nibart-Devouard:

“They do not respect the licence at all,” said Florence Nibart-Devouard, chair of the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation, during an interview at the Wikimania 2007 conference in Taipei. “That might be the biggest copyright violation we have. We have others,” she added.

It’s too bad.

It’s not hard to comply with the GFDL, but they seem to be scared of the litigation risk. The thing going for Baidu is that the Foundation cannot bring a lawsuit, since the Foundation only hosts the hardware and the site. Any lawsuit would have to come from authors who have been “harmed” by Baidu’s noncompliance. That’s not bound to happen anytime soon.

I plan to make another attempt to open up a dialogue with the folks at the company to simply explain how the GFDL works. Baidu’s a NASDAQ-listed company, so there is some “face” aspect of having it conform to the license that other prominent Wikipedia mirrors have complied with.

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  • 9 Responses to “Baidupedia in Business Week”

    1. Supermann
      November 13th, 2007 20:58
      1

      They’re blaming it on the users, not themselves. “users have to adhere to the GFDL”

      http://www.baidu.com/search/baike_help.html#n10

    2. CComMack
      November 14th, 2007 00:21
      2

      Eben Moglen has talked about GPL enforcement, and mentioned that many, many doors were opened (or, rather, not closed) because he could say the following magic words to the lawyers of infringers: “We don’t want money, we don’t want publicity. The only thing we want is compliance.” Perhaps there’s an even more face-saving way to address this to Baidu, but it’s a good thing to reinforce.

    3. Danwei : Danwei Picks: 2007-11-14
      November 14th, 2007 02:49
      3

      […] Baidupedia in Business Week: Andrew Lih quotes a BusinessWeek story on possible copyright violations and censorship at Baidu Baike, and then looks at what Baidu thinks of Wikipedia:When I met one of Baidu’s program managers a few months ago, I told her I’d be interested in talking to folks from Baidu Baike, just to let them know how to conform to the GFDL. It was actually fine to copy Wikipedia’s content, and also to censor stuff they don’t like, as long as they complied with the GFDL. She got back to me saying Baidu’s folks on that side were "scared" of talking to folks involved with Wikipedia, after the strong comments by Wikimedia Foundation chairperson Florence Nibart-Devouard. […]

    4. blognation China » Blog Archive » Is Baidu Scared of the Wikipedia?
      November 16th, 2007 03:31
      4

      […] An interesting post from the blog of Andrew Lih reveals that Baidu, a local search engine and the site behind local wiki Baidu Baike, is apparently scared of the Wikipedia. This can get on the side of being comical: Baidu itself is accused of censoring content! (Being scared of provoking Big Brother while equally being scared of the Wikipedia… you know, somewhere, the maths starts not making sense!) […]

    5. David Gerard
      November 16th, 2007 08:05
      5

      The really silly thing is that Baidu Baike could easily reuse it in a compliant manner, just by keeping it under the GFDL, attaching a copy of the GFDL (easy on a website) and listing the five main contributors to the text. They wouldn’t even have to name Wikipedia, let alone pay anyone a penny! o_0

    6. Danwei : Three stories about intellectual property
      November 19th, 2007 08:44
      6

      […] It’s a small thing, but in a climate where Baidu is afraid to adhere to conform to Wikipedia’s free-reuse license, it’s nice to see an open license working out in China. Links and Sources […]

    7. Three stories about intellectual property « Sampsung @ HiLaws ♨侍孝祥♨
      November 21st, 2007 00:53
      7

      […] It’s a small thing, but in a climate where Baidu is afraid to adhere to conform to Wikipedia’s free-reuse license, it’s nice to see an open license working out in China. […]

    8. Katerina Wu
      January 17th, 2008 12:04
      8

      Those interested in reading about Chinese issues (from business, culture, trade, to tourism, innovation, technology, academia and more), you can download FOR FREE the Inaugural Issue of China Insights Today magazine www.chinainsightstoday.com

      It has more than 400 pages full colour.

      Katerina Wu

    9. Baidupedia in Business Week « Sampsung @ HiLaws ♨侍孝祥♨
      January 29th, 2008 01:09
      9

      […] Source: Andrew Lih; Click here for original full text.  […]

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