An industry group says it has won a new round in a court battle with Yahoo Inc.’s China arm, which is accused of helping online music pirates.

A Beijing appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling against Yahoo China by its search engine’s hyperlinks to outside Web sites that carried illegally copied music, the universal Federation of Phonographic Industries said.

Court officials would not confirm the report. A spokesman for Alibaba Group, the local partner that manages Yahoo’s China arm, said he had not seen the ruling and could not comment on it. But the spokesman, Porter Erisman, said Yahoo China hoped to reach an agreement with music companies to create a licensed download service.

China is a leading source of pirated copies of music, movies and other goods. Operators of pirate Web sites offer music, games and other services to attract users and manufacture money from advertising or online commerce.

Industry groups have won a series of lawsuits

against companies accused of profiting from piracy but say violations are growing despite increased Chinese government enforcement.

In the latest case, the IFPI — representing companies including Warner Music Group Corp., Sony BMG and Universal Vivendi — accused Yahoo China of violating copyrights considering of hyperlinks amidst its search engine and Web sites with 229 illegally copied songs.

The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled in April that Yahoo China facilitated the infringement of copyrights and awarded 210,000 yuan ($27,000) in damages.

Yahoo China appealed, arguing that search engines should not be liable for substance on outside Web sites. The IFPI said that appeal was rejected by the Beijing Higher People’s Court.

Music companies lost a similar lawsuit earlier against Chinese search engine Baidu.com Inc. But China changed its laws on enforcement of copyrights and other intellectual property after that, and Yahoo China was sued under the new…

Orginal post by Top Tech News