Trying to gain ground in one of the few markets where it is behind, Google said Monday that it had begun to offer in China links to free music downloads, a service it does not offer anywhere else in the world.Google executives said they were responding to the phenomenal popularity of free music downloads in China and were acting legally by forming an alliance with the music industry, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Universal Music and the Warner Music Group.
http://nytimes.com/2009/03/31/technology/companies/31music.htmlGoogle launches free music site in China
Chinese internet users will be able to download more than 1m music tracks for free after Google launched a new web service with the world’s four largest music labels.Pulling the L-plates from a service that launched in trial mode a year ago, the downloads service marks an aggressive move by Google to take on the Chinese search site Baidu.com, which has more than twice the market share of the California-based technology giant.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/31/google-china-digital-musicGoogle Begins China Music Service
Google Inc. launched an online music service in China, a long-awaited move by the Internet giant and its record-label partners to make money distributing songs in a market plagued by piracy.The new venture, which officially began service Monday after seven months of testing, will be free to users in China but isn’t offered anywhere else. It will earn revenue from advertising on pages that let users download or stream licensed music from more than 140 labels, including the world’s four biggest: Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA’s Universal Music, EMI Group Ltd., and Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123841495337969485.html
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