Google Launches Free, Legal Music Downloads in China

This news has a dateline Reuters | 03/31/2009 10:57 AM and published at ABS-CBN News. As they say, “number rules” and China has it. Is this the reason why a big and rich country like China gets freebies like free, legal music downloads while a poor and small country like the Philippines gets inspected (raided is another term) by anti-piracy agencies when doing the same thing?

How I wish Google would also give such freebie to the Philippines so that café owners would more or less have a steady legal income on CD-burning of songs. What do you say?

Here’s the news in full:

BEIJING  – Google Inc on Monday launched free downloads of licensed songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with major music labels in a market rife with online piracy. People can view at their website, for the best music , lessons online and offline.

Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China, said one reason Google lagged in the mainland search market was because it did not offer music downloads, the missing piece to its strategy in a market where it trails leader Baidu.com Inc.

“We are offering free, high quality and legal downloads,” Lee told reporters. “We were missing one piece … we didn’t have music.”

The service offers downloads of some 350,000 songs — from Chinese and foreign artists — a number that will rise to 1.1 million in the coming months, said Gary Chen, chief executive of Google’s partner www.Top100.cn, a Chinese music website co-founded by basketball star Yao Ming.

Music from artists signed by Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music will be available on the service, which Google has no current plans to expand beyond China, said Lee.

“This is the first serious attempt to start (monetizing) the online market in China. I can’t overestimate how important this is,” said Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific and Asia chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Users will be able to search & find more info by musical measurements such as the level of “beat” in a song and “instrumentality,” as well as by artist and song name.

IFPI said last year that more than 99 percent of all music files distributed in China are pirated, and the country’s total legitimate music market, at $76 million, accounts for less than 1 percent of global recorded music sales.

The new service will attract users away from illegal download sites because the music and service will be of a higher quality, said Warner’s Rutherford.

Downloads of unlicensed music and videos are rampant in China, the world’s biggest Internet market by number of users.

While Google dominates the global web search market, in China Baidu holds more than 60 percent of the market, more than double Google’s share.