Baidu Tieba To Close Down Due To Piracy Fears

Baidu is due to close its literature forum website, Baidu Tieba, due to ongoing concerns of online piracy. The move has come as a reaction to reports made in Xinhua news outlets, that accused Baidu Tieba of being the largest source of pirated written content online. To assist in the closing down of its pages, Baidu has set up a system that the public can use to send tip-offs to the company, which will then be investigated and the content removed within 12 hours. The cost of piracy to the Chinese online literature industry is an estimated of 1.2 billion US dollars, and with 64% of users reading pirated novels being traced back to Baidu Tieba, the site is due to shut down thousands of pages in the coming weeks. 

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