Google Brings Free Music Downloads to China
Early in 2008, Google, in cooperation with Chinese online music service Top100.cn, started a free music download service in China. Today, Google took the beta label off this service and also announced deals with the four largest music labels (EMI, Sony, Warner, and Universal). According to a report from Reuters, the service currently offers about 350,000 songs, but thanks to these new deals with the record labels, this number will soon increase to about 1.1 million songs.
According to Google's Lee Kai-Fu, Google needs a competitive music download service in order to compete with Baidu.com, the leading search engine in China.
It is important to note that a lot of Google's competitors in China, including Baidu, Sohu, and Yahoo, have recently been sued by the music industry in China because of their MP3 search engines which often link to illegal copies. Indeed, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the record industry's international lobbying group, 99% of all music files distributed in China are pirated (in 2005, by the way, the piracy level in China was 'only' 85%). Baidu's MP3 search engine is responsible for about 7% of the traffic to its service.
While Google has clearly been able to work out deals with the music industry in China, it is currently locked in a number of battles with the music industry in Europe and the United States, and we don't expect that Google will offer a similar service anywhere else in the world anytime soon.
It will be interesting to see if Google manages to steal away users from Baidu thanks to this new offering. If anything, users have shown to be quite resistant when it comes to changing their search habits, and while Google's MP3 catalog is interesting enough by itself, it remains to be seen if it can be competitive against the other MP3 search engines in China.
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I believe, Google must have looked into various copyright issues. In my opinion there can be some other alternatives to promote Google in China.
I canont start to download those song from Hong Kong.
I suppose this is one way to fight fire with fire. I'm going to give Google the benefit of the doubt that they know what they are doing and wouldn't boldly infringe on copyright issues. I could access all my usual sites when I was in both Beijing and Shanghai, I think most of the restrictions take place on the .cn sites. When I have digital security issues I consult justaskgemalto.
You guys always hit the nail on the head!
Imho, these are key questions:
If this works in China, why not do this everywhere else? If this works for Google, why not for telecoms, ISPs and mobile operators? If this works for music, why not - sooner or later - for music, TV, video, books and newspapers?
Ok, so China does not have much of a business of 'selling units', i.e. there are no Billions of $ in selling CDs or single-track downloads. Therefore, any money that the rights-holders (i.e. the record labels and music publishers, and hopefully the artists) can actually get from anyone in China is probably very welcome; and that is exactly what the Google / Top100 deal will provide. And even though it would be a fair bet to guess that this deal is probably not coming cheap for Google China, it is probably still quite doable since the 'competition' of physical music sales is negligible and so-called 'cannibalization' of traditional music sales is not a major concern for the record industry in China. This would of course be substantially different in the UK or Germany where CD sales and the omni-present iTunes still generate Billions of Euros per year. But this is the lesson: someone had to put some money down. Congrats to Google / Top100. Next: the telecoms - within 6-9 months, imho.
BUT this whole thing begs the question: why do those lucky Chinese Internet users - many of whom may never had to worry much about potential copyright issues, 3 Strikes+Out ideas or MP3-server raids - now get a de-facto feels like free music service, while we - the more or less faithful and compliant residents of 'The West' - still need to pay 1 Euro / 1 $ for each single download on iTunes, $3 / month for Last.fm (ouch) or run off to the record store, or order on Amazon...?
The rest of this story is on my blog at
http://www.mediafuturist.com/2009/03/why-googles-free-music-deal-in-china-is-important-and-what-it-means.html
Therefore, any söve money that the rights-holders (i.e. the record labels and music publishers, söve and hopefully the artists) can actually get from anyone in China is probably söve very welcome; and that is söve exactly what the Google / Top100 deal will provide. And even söve though it would be a fair bet to guess that this deal is probably söve not coming cheap for Google China, söve it is probably still quite doable since the 'competition' of physical music sales is negligible söve and so-called 'cannibalization' of söve traditional music sales is not a major concern for the record industry söve in China. This would of course söve be substantially different in the UK or Germany where CD sales and söve the omni-present iTunes still generate Billions of Euros per year
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I canont start to download those song from Hong Kong.