Youku, Tudou tussle over Chinese online video copyright

China's leading video streaming sites, Tudou and Youku, have accused each other of stealing the other's content. Tudou and Taiwanese television station Chung T'ien Television (CtiTV) jointly issued a statement alleging that Youku and other video streaming sites had infringed upon their copyright, by broadcasting without permission Chung T'ien's variety show KangXi Lai Le. In the open letter, CtiTV, which owns the copyright to the programme, said that Youku had illegally played all the episodes of the show from 1 December and "more seriously, those episodes are not uploaded by online users but uploaded and recommended by Youku itself, and they promoted the program, placing it in the most prominent position of Youku's own variety show section." According to reports, after receiving repeated official complaints from CtiTV, Youku removed the episodes temporarily, but uploaded them all again on 8 December. In the public statement CtiTV and Tudou said that they will defend their copyright and reserve the right to negotiate, report, prosecute or seek compensation from those who they claim have infringed on their rights.