Safe harbor provisions of Chinese law: How clear are search engines from liability?

It seemed well-settled that Chinese law provided owners of search engines with safe harbor against unreasonable interference from copyright holders. But the judgment of IFPI v. Yahoo! shook this belief. This controversial judgment is related to the rather convoluted applicable legal rules, with joint infringement rules interweaved with the safe harbor provisions. To fully expose the scope of search engine provider's liability and the legal issues of the Yahoo! China ruling in particular, this paper examines the Chinese provisions for joint infringement and liability for search engines, discusses all the Chinese “safe harbor” provisions, those in the Regulation RCIN, the Judiciary Interpretation for Digital Copyright and the Administrative Measures for Digital Copyright. Following this discussion, suggested errors in legal application in the Yahoo! China case are analyzed and a suggested right approach is argued.