Venture capitalists see opportunity in China

Venture capitalists across Silicon Valley, Calif., are falling for China.

For years, entrepreneurs have dreamed of making it in China, salivating at the prospect of more than a billion people and an economy growing at 9 percent a year. But for the most part, those dreams have so far remained just that.

Now, new developments are drawing the eyes of venture capitalists. A raft of recent successful initial public offerings of Chinese companies show foreign investors finally have a way to recoup profits from investments there. The companies, which are listed on Nasdaq or Hong Kong stock exchanges, are producing gains some say could make U.S. ventures pale in comparison.

The interest is already translating into action. Private equity investments into China companies grew to $1.6 billion last year, up from $418 million in 2002. And this year should see still more. Last year, 172 venture firms operated in China, up from 38 in 2002, according to the Asia Venture Capital Journal.

Courts

Porn publisher sues Google over images

A Beverly Hills pornography publisher sued Google Inc. for copyright infringement Friday, accusing the Internet titan of failing to adequately remove from its search results thousands of photos posted online without permission.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Perfect 10 Inc. alleged that Web surfers could find its copyrighted pictures of nude women for free by performing Google searches.

The company said it had sent 27 formal requests to the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google to remove the offending Web sites from its index and stop displaying the photographs in its search results, but was not satisfied with Google’s response.

A Google spokesman declined to comment, saying the company had not yet reviewed the lawsuit.