IN his first response to a recent copyright dispute, Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, Monday said the company is stepping up anti-piracy efforts and hopes to work out a mutually beneficial business model to settle the dispute.

    China’s most popular search engine was accused of copyright violations by a group of writers earlier this month after Baidu Wenku offered their works for free online without the their authorization.

    Negotiations between Baidu and the writers broke down on Thursday with some writers accusing Baidu of being arrogant and insincere during negotiations.

    At a summit of IT leaders in Shenzhen, Li said the company was taking the copyright dispute very seriously and stepping up anti-piracy efforts. Baidu hopes to work with copyright holders and authors to achieve a win-win business model, Li said. “I’m also looking forward to a satisfactory answer,” he said.

    In a statement Saturday, Baidu apologized to the writers and promised to delete all rights-infringing materials over the following three days. The company denied that its file-sharing platform had made any profit and said it would “actively promote the cooperation with writers and publishing houses to make money via charging for reading or advertising and give most of the profits to the copyrights holders.”

    However Baidu’s offer was rejected by several Chinese writers on Sunday. The writers instead called for a new round of talks on the issue.

    Zhang Hongbo, deputy director general of the China Written Works Copyright Society, a nongovernmental organization that initiated the copyright protection movement in China, called for the public to clearly understand what the announcement was saying.

    “The announcement only apologized to the extent of moral doubt, but we expected them to admit their copyright violations,” said Zhang.

    He said his organization also wants Baidu to figure out a solution that protects the writers’ interests. He warned there will be more attempts to fight the piracy of intellectual property rights if the Web site continues to turn a deaf ear to the writers’ request.

    Shen Haobo, an independent publisher who represents the writers, said Sunday they refused to accept Baidu’s announcement because it did not admit the site had engaged in piracy.

    “The announcement indicated that there’s a chance they will reestablish the free online unauthorized offering of stories and books in the future sometime,” said Shen.

    Around 50 Chinese writers accused Baidu on March 15 — World Consumer Rights Day — of scanning free unauthorized books and uploading them to its online library. The writers said the site began the action in November 2009.

    Baidu Wenku, the online library, allows users to read, share or download books for free. Some books can be purchased at discounted prices.

    The unauthorized works were uploaded by Internet users to Wenku without prior approval from the authors, a spokesman for the search engine giant said in a statement.

    After receiving requests from writers to remove their copyrighted works, Baidu has sped up its process of checking for unauthorized items. By Sunday, the number of free literature documents in Baidu Wenku had decreased from 2.9 million to 1 million.

    A 4.5-hour-long negotiation between Baidu and the writers’ representatives, including Shen and Zhang, began on Thursday but broke down in discord. Baidu rejected all the writers’ demands, including a request for compensation and for the suspension of the online library, according to Shen.

    China’s leading blogger, Han Han, complained early on Saturday that representatives of Baidu were arrogant in negotiations with the writers and refused to admit any act of piracy had taken place. (SD-Agencies)