99% of music downloads in China are pirated. China’s biggest search engines surface up MP3’s to download on music searches. With no copyright laws to protect them, the 4 major music labels have embraced free music in China, allowing Google to make MP3’s available for download in China in return for a rev-share on advertising.
Read more:
Tech Crunch: Google China Signs Big Music For Free MP3 Search Engine
ReadWriteWeb: Google Brings Free Music Downloads to China
whit: this is interesting, but it seems like a stretch to say that the labels are “embracing free music” here. The labels are embracing somebody paying something for music in an environment in which they don’t have a lot of levers to pull, and for reasons of its own Google is willing to be that somebody.
