{"id":8525,"date":"2011-04-25T01:04:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T01:04:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:04:11","slug":"beijing-censors-take-aim-at-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=8525","title":{"rendered":"Beijing Censors Take Aim at Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>China&#8217;s Ministry of Culture will &#8220;hand down punishments&#8221; to 14 websites, including one run by Internet search provider Baidu Inc., for providing downloads of songs not approved or registered with the country&#8217;s content regulators, in what appeared to be part of a renewed effort to block explicit and politically sensitive online content.  The websites have provided download services for the music despite warnings not to do so, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday, citing a ministry official. Xinhua didn&#8217;t specify the punishments.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo said: &#8220;We are aware that songs require approval and have sought to comply with previous notifications from the Ministry of Culture. But search engine indexing is a continuous process and some files may have reappeared in results. Baidu will now take quick action to remove links to any files that have been identified by the Ministry.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><strong>The notice comes as China undertakes broader efforts to take greater control of Internet content. China&#8217;s Internet censors in recent months have revved up their efforts to block content they see as threatening after anonymous calls online for Middle East-inspired &#8220;Jasmine Revolution&#8221; activities.  Baidu&#8217;s search service for digital MP3 copies of songs has long been under pressure because it includes links to free downloads of unlicensed copies of songs \u2013 part of a broader issue of piracy that has generated complaints by Western media companies. But the reason for the Culture Ministry&#8217;s move appears to be related to censorship concerns. The Xinhua report didn&#8217;t mention intellectual property issues.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704677404576284641732670926.html\" title=\"SOURCE\">SOURCE<\/a><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China&#8217;s Ministry of Culture will &#8220;hand down punishments&#8221; to 14 websites, including one run by Internet search provider Baidu Inc.,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":70655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1002],"tags":[2001],"class_list":["post-8525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-music"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"colormag-highlighted-post":false,"colormag-featured-post-medium":false,"colormag-featured-post-small":false,"colormag-featured-image":false,"colormag-default-news":false,"colormag-featured-image-large":false,"colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":false},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"China&#8217;s Ministry of Culture will &#8220;hand down punishments&#8221; to 14 websites, including one run by Internet search provider Baidu Inc.,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Music"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":149,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":false,"medium":false,"thumbnail":false},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1002\">Music<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}