In bold move, China's Ministry of Culture has set new rules for music sold online, acording to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

The rules require music sites to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute.

The new rules also affect music providers such as Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU).

Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU - option chain) shares are diving today after the Wall Street Journal reported that speculation is rampant in China that the internet-search company accepted payments from dairy companies to keep negative items from appearing in its search results. BIDU admits that several dairy companies had approached the company, but says it refused all offers to screen negative news. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on BIDU.

This morning, BIDU opened at $280.50. So far today the stock has hit a low of $201.15 and a high of $311.30. As of 1:05, BIDU is trading at $293.90, down $11.35 (-3.7%). The chart for BIDU looks neutral and S&P gives BIDU a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bear-call credit spread above the $360 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 5.3% return in 4 weeks as long as BIDU is below $360 at October expiration. Baidu would have to rise by more than 23% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

BIDU hasn't been above $360 at since May and has shown resistance around $325 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in BIDU.

Christmas (or should I say "Xmas" -- "the holiday season" maybe?) continues to be criminalized and the companies that make a business of tinsel, gaily wrapped packages and "ho, ho, ho" don't know whether to embrace or hide from the specter of political incorrectness.

I'm sorry. Did I offend you?

In the latest blow to the no-longer-holy holidays, Santas in Sydney, Australia are being urged to say "ha, ha, ha," instead of "ho, ho, ho."

Recruitment firm Westaff (NASDAQ: WSTF), which contracts with hundreds of Santas, sending them to stores and social appearances throughout Australia, has re-vamped its training. It's telling would-be Santas that the "ho ho ho" phrase "could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women," according to an Australian newspaper.

As Zac Bissonnette says, "ho, ho, ho" is offensive? I could understand if Santas were walking around calling people nappy-headed 'hos," but Santa's jolly greeting is more kid lit than gangsta rap.

In a news piece that is gaining more and more momentum, Rolling Stone issued an article on Friday featuring an interview with hip hop artist Nas about his new album and Universal Music Group's decision to back his choice for title. Meanwhile, New York area legislators are demanding the State Comptroller withdraw a pension fund from UMG unless the title is changed, arguing that UMG and Nas are "profiting from a racial slur that has been used to dehumanize people of color for centuries."

Nas can certainly feel confident with his title choice, as the record label has backed him and offered no comment for the piece. According to the rapper, the controversy surrounding the album "is like talking to your children about sex. It's hard, but it's important." Despite the difficulties that may raise among whoever talks about the album, as Nas also states it is "just an album." Listeners and fans will decide to buy the album presumably on their like or dislike of Nas's past work and if reviews are positive for this album.

Of course, listeners may be enticed to purchase the album strictly for the title, or they may be turned away. No matter the controversy surrounding the decision, or the decision itself, in the end it appears like any other marketing stunt. Universal Music certainly has nothing to lose in the venture; the company's share in the music industry is around 30% and they have a wide lead over the next competitor, Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG), at 25%. In any case, in a month we can see if the controversy amounts to anything and what kind of reception the album will have.

After having its YouTube site blocked in Thailand due to videos considered offensive by the country's government, and facing the specter of a lawsuit over the matter, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) executives can sleep a little better tonight: Thailand has dropped its lawsuit against the company. The Ministry of Information's decision came after Google agreed to remove the 12 offensive video clips, which depicted things like shoes with their soles directed towards the King, which is offensive in that country.

It's unclear exactly how Thailand would have enforced any judgment its courts gave it against the company and, frankly, I'm a little disappointed to see YouTube backing down on this matter. In a letter to the country's Ministry of Information, Google wrote that "We have the deepest respect for His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. We likewise respect Thailand's law and tradition and hope that we will be able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution to the current controversy."

Couldn't YouTube have said, "We respect the King but we also respect free speech and are committed to promoting these values"? It's not the first time Google has backed down in a free speech right. It also agreed to censor its site for China, removing references to events the government there considers offensive.

YouTube's video service is currently being blocked in Thailand because the site contains images of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which Thailand's government considers to be offensive.

The Google-owned company has repeatedly declined to censor the images, winning cheers from proponents of free speech. According to Youtube's Head of Communications Julie Supan "While we will not take down videos that do not violate our policies, and will not assist in implementing censorship, we have offered to educate the Thai ministry about YouTube and how it works."

This statement is a little bit hypocritical, given Google's decision to censor its site to gain access to the Chinese market. It looks like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is using Thailand, a market which would produce relatively insignificant revenue for the company, to make a statement about how strongly it feels about free speech. But with a larger market like China, Google has censored references to Taiwanese independence and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

I can see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, it's better that people in nations with tyrannical leadership have access to some information rather than no information, and if censorship is the only way Google can give them some access, then so be it.

But Google can't claim the moral high-road of "not assisting in implementing censorship" in one nation when it does just that in another.

Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube just isn't making a lot of friends these days. Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA) suing, network's are mad, and now a country has banned the video-sharing website. Again. According to Winai Yoosabai, head of the censorship unit at Thailand's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, "We have blocked YouTube because it contains a video insulting to our king."

Apparently Thailand banned the site after asking YouTube to remove the offensive video and receiving a curt refusal from the Google-owned company: According to the New York Times, "The clip, crude and amateurish and lasting less than a minute, depicts the king with clown features painted onto his face and an image of feet pasted over his head, an insulting gesture in Thailand."

In March, Turkey blocked the country for a short-time after a video appeared that was insulting to the founder of modern Turkey. A Brazilian court had the site blocked after videos of a famous actress from the country with her lover appeared on the site.

And so, as a patriotic American, I am here to make an impassioned plea to the American government. In recent weeks, numerous videos have appeared on YouTube making fun of one of our nation's most talented and beloved entertainers. I'm speaking, of course, of Sanjaya. Consider this clip of the Sanjaya Anthem. We simply cannot stand for this crude mockery of our national treasure.

Being that I'm a hale-and-hearty defender of the First Amendment, I always take special notice of occurrences which could have significant impact on the dissemination of art, literature, or other such things. Once again, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has quashed a request for a .xxx domain to be created for the registration of "pornographic" websites. I cannot blame ICANN for shying away from giving its approval when I understand that the position of responsibility that approval would place it in is unacceptable for it, and would take the group well outside the scope of what it was created for.

So, we are still faced with the heavy infusion of pornographic material within the mainstream internet, and whether or not something can or should be done about it. I myself am in favor of a designated domain for sexually explicit material, for the simple reason that it would make it easier for parents to have success in restricting those materials from being accessed by their kids. I'm not writing this because I want to debate the existence of porn. I'm simply stating that we still have a situation which, in my opinion, must be dealt with.

I find it rather odd that the Family Research Council applauds the decision of ICANN. FRC claims that to provide a designated domain for the lusty sites would legitimize their existence and create a virtual "red light district" within the mainstream internet. I guess they don't understand that the stuff is already entrenched. I ask the Family Research Council to answer me this: If you were trying to displace prostitutes from your neighborhood would you rather do battle with them on your front porch or send someone else to deal with them in their own home? Your short-sighted approval of the ICANN decision is lost on me. Would it not be better to suggest an amended proposal that would get the job done?

In my considered opinion, this is a matter that shall not quietly pass. What we need to do is create the conditions wherein ICANN can to provide porn its own top-level domain without taking the responsibility to police it. The issue of domain monopoly would also need to be addressed. Then, without involving the courts, porn site webmasters could be encouraged to migrate their content to the new domain. After a reasonable period of voluntary change, I suspect about 70% of the adult sites would have willingly moved to the new domain. Then, I think it would be appropriate for adult sites in other domains to be challenged to prove why they should be allowed to remain outside their available "proper" channels.

I don't mean to say that porn should be stripped from the internet. I'm too much of a constitutionalist for that. I'm just saying that if the porn webmasters wish to remain unmolested on the web, we should create the safe conditions to allow them to do that. We will never do away with porn, but we most certainly can do away with being assaulted by it.

For a company with the motto "Don't Do Evil," Google's launch earlier this year of a censored search engine (Google.cn) for the Chinese market has been something of a quagmire. 

Many activists and pundits have been in a fervor over Google's move to acquiesce to the demands of the Chinese government to censor information.

Google.com has been the global and only portal for Google's search engine, but in 2002 it faced a country-wide shut-down in China.  Worldwide protest got the site re-instated but as China's influence has grown and more notably Chinese search engine Baidu's market share has grown, the censorship dance has begun again. 

In recent months both Google.com and Google.cn have been concurrently running in China. But Google.com has faced a number of outages in China and things have recently come to a head as co-founder Sergey Brin on June 6th announced that Google had compromised its principles by accommodating the Chinese government.  While lobbying on Capitol Hill, Brin stated that Google may rethink it's entrance into China.

Coincidentally or not, circa June 6 - June 8, an Internet crack-down occurred in China which left the  Google.com portal all but shut down.

So after much controversy regarding Google's entrance into the Chinese market, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has stated that Google will remain in China, as Google believes that it is in the best interest of Chinese users. If they can't have full access, then some access is better than no access, he reasons. 

Activists argue that Google should stick to its principles in dealing with China, and demand full access for Chinese users.  If the Chinese government is going to block access then it can try; it'll come down to whether Google, the idea of "Don't do Evil," and all like-minded adherents can overcome a government.  For an idealist it's a great opportunity to take a stand and put it on the line. But for a business, the possibility of being shut out of the Chinese market(s) is quite daunting.

Interestingly enough, after Brin today announced Google will remain in China, access to Google.com within China has returned to full operational status.