"I don't think it's a sincere apology. As I said, what they hurt is not our feelings but our interests. They stole our money," he said. "I've been telling the media that we are not in a romantic relationship with Baidu, so it's no time to talk about feelings."

"The announcement only apologized to the extent of moral doubt, but we expected them to admit their copyright violations," said Zhang Hongbo, Deputy Director General of the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS), a non-governmental organization.

Zhang said his organization also wanted Baidu to figure out a solution that protects writers' interests. He warned there would be more attempts to fight the piracy of intellectual property if Baidu continued to turn a deaf ear to writers' request.

"Our organization had been collecting evidence of Baidu's copyright infringement and will take legal action," said Zhang. "And we would submit the evidence we collected to copyright authorities for possible investigation."

Shen Haobo, an independent publisher who represented writers at the negotiation with Baidu, said they refused to accept Baidu's announcement because it did not admit the site had engaged in piracy.

"The announcement indicates there's a chance they will reestablish the free online offering unauthorized literary works in the future," said Shen.

Hao said he checked Baidu Wenku on March 29, the deadline when Baidu promised to delete all unauthorized books. "They said they would thoroughly check and delete all content involving infringement," said Hao. "I did a check for my works on Baidu Wenku, and some of my novels were still there but with my name removed. So they did check and delete, but not that thoroughly."

"Baidu has only deleted certain literary works from its library, while leaving untouched other kinds of digital books that are nonetheless under copyright protection, such as books on foreign languages and on computers," said Zhang of CWWCS.

According to Zhang, by noon on March 30, the number of literary works available in Baidu Wenku had dropped to 1,100 from 2.8 million. Even so, the library contains 17 million digital works on education, entertainment, technology and other topics.

The copyright issue with Baidu is not the first case in China. In late 2009, another search engine Google also came under intense fire from Chinese authors who claimed its digital library scanned their books without permission. Google apologized in January 2010. But that dispute appears to have been left in limbo after Google reduced its presence in China last year.

"Anyway, this would be an effective way for the giant search engine as well as other companies to concentrate more seriously on copyright issues. It will cause a big wave to wash out the majority of infringing items in China," said Zhang.

Music issue

Even before the issue of literary piracy, Baidu had been accused for years of promoting piracy through its MP3 search service. Some major music labels filed lawsuits against Baidu in November 2006 and January 2008, but Baidu won both cases. The court upheld the ruling that Baidu is not guilty of copyright infringement for displaying links to websites that offer free music downloads.

This time, together with the authors, songwriters and singers gathered for the protection of their rights.

Music groups said Baidu's service offers users "deep links" to pirated music on third-party hosted sites.

"Baidu's MP3 search was a major factor behind the company's rise in China, becoming one of its most popular services," said songwriter Gao Xiaosong.

Baidu now has a 75.5-percent share of China's Internet search market, with Google a distant second, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysis International.

On April 1, Baidu announced it had made an agreement with the Music Copyright Society of China to establish a partnership to protect legal digital music. According to the agreement, Baidu will start paying the society for every music download on the site and giving data of what has been downloaded to it, and pay copyright holders appropriately. The money will be sent directly to songwriters, not major record labels. Baidu also plans to eventually add a licensed content page on its music search site.

"This will encompass any song that is downloaded from Baidu's music search site," said Kaiser Kuo.

"The changes Baidu is making could create a really wide-reaching music platform through the Internet leading to profits for those in the music industry. This has never happened before in China," said Liu Ping, Vice Secretary General of the Music Copyright Society of China.