Chinese search engine Baidu has just wrapped up negotiations with major Western music labels and signed distribution deals that will effectively give Baidu users legitimate access to free music. The deal is between Baidu and One-Stop China, a venture that represents Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music in China. Baidu gets a license to the entire catalogues of each label in exchange for royalties paid on each song that is played or downloaded,CNET reports....

Reutersreports thatBaidu, China’s biggest search engine, has been sued by New York residents who accused the company of “conspiring with the country’s government” to censor their pro-democracy speech, even when searches originated inside the U.S. According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Baidu acts as an “enforcer” of policies by the ruling Communist Party in censoring pro-democracy writings and videos to the extent that they do not appear in search results even when made within the country, which violates laws in the US Constitution....

Baidu, China’s largest search engine, has recently taken flak for being lax in dealing with copyright-infringing material on its online library. With hopes to clear its name, the company has recentlyannouncedits plans to introduce anti-piracy technology for online documents and books. The search company was identified by the US Trade Representative as one of the mostnotoriousmarkets for pirated content. It wascriticizedlast week by more than 40 writers who have signed a letter claiming that the company provided the authors’ works for free to download on its online libraryBaidu Wenku, without their permission....

Baidu, China’s biggest search company, wasidentifiedby the US Trade Representative as one of the mostnotoriousInternet markets for hosting pirated content. In a bid to fight piracy and win back its reputation, the company has announced a revamped MP3 service that is set to be released in May. A Beijing-based analyst firm’s president, Lubbe Wang, expects this transition to initially impact Baidu negatively — a whopping loss of half of its users for the music service....

Baidu and Microsoft may expand their partnership to offer English-language search results from Microsoft’s Bing search engine for queries on Baidu made in English, according to an industry source cited byMarbridge Consulting. Baidu senior VP Haoyu Shen toldBloombergthat the two companies “won’t rule out” expanding on their existing collaboration, but refused to reveal other details. This partnership may be Baidu’s catalyst to speed up its overseas expansion. It seems like the Chinese search giant is ready to challenge Google in foreign lands, after the Beijing-based company overcame competition from Google to dominate in China....