From Google with Love: One Million Free Songs Offered to China
The most crucial factor that 'inspired' such a move was perhaps the fact that China has no copyright laws
Google wants to show they are really serious about their anti-piracy stand and along with the launching of a free music download site in China this week the giant media corporation made over one million tracks available as free downloads.
Google-powered new site aiming at making Chine music listeners abandon their bad online habits will actually mean a partnership with the popular Chinese website Top100.cn.
The record labels involved in the ‘project’ (as you haven’t guessed by now – Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI) agreed that the revenue generated by advertising will covered the ‘investment.’
China drew attention to its huge appetite for illegal music downloads when an report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said that as much as 99% of all music downloaded over the Internet is not paid for.
Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia and regional head of the global recording industry group, the IFPI said that this is the first really significant effort to monetize online music in China (and considering that this country has the world's largest number of internet users – about 300m, one might think – ‘really, why so late?’).
