MUMBAI: China Ministry of Culture will penalize 14 websites including Baidu Inc. for providing illegal music/songs download. Ministry officials stated in media report that the websites have provided download services for the music despite of warnings. Baidu is China's top search engine and this decision poses a near-term risk to the firm's soaring stock price.

The notice came as renewed effort of China's official to acquire control on Internet content, and to erase pornography and politically sensitive content of various kinds from the Internet. In January, the Culture Ministry issued a list of 100 songs that it required to be removed from Chinese websites, including several by Christina Alguilera, Eminem and Kylie Minogue, as well as others by artists from South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Media reports didn't mention intellectual property issues but states that, Culture Ministry's has taken the move as it appears to be related to censorship. Baidu's search service for digital MP3 copies of songs has been under pressure as it includes links to free downloads of unlicensed copies of songs –that has generated complaints by Western media companies as an issue of piracy 

Reports also stated that the Culture Ministry will also penalize 20 online gaming companies including Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd. for using vulgar methods to promote their games.