Google Giving Away Music In China
Google has the lion’s share of the search engine market in most countries; the major exception is China, where native search portal Baidu is by far the dominant site. This was achieved not just by being a local company sensitive to local concerns (though that is certainly a large part of it: Chinese consumers prefer their search experience to begin with an active page full of many options, a very different design than that offered by Google’s minimalist homepage), but by the company’s being bound only by local laws. Or, rather, the lack of local laws about linking to copyrighted material—which Google may have found a way of getting around.
Chinese regulations are very different on the subject of intellectual property than those in America—most notably, the anti-linking provisions in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act that keep illegal download sites low on Google’s results (unless you search for a specific term connected with illegal downloading, ahem) do not seem much in evidence in the People’s Republic. This allows Baidu to link to publicly available, if not always authorized, music files as a way of generating traffic. (Not that we’re jealous or anything.) But as a multinational corporation subject to international law, which is not so big on copyright infringement, Google couldn’t get away with that so easily. So while they have made some modifications to their usual homepage for Chinese consumers, adding direct filter options for movies and music, among other things, they still only have 28% of the Chinese market. Which is, of course, a very large one.
And so, Google has cut a deal with labels to offer free music downloads in China, a service the company doesn’t offer anywhere else. The majors are on board, and they are also suing Baidu for their practice of linking free downloads, though Baidu says it has a revenue-sharing deal with labels and that merely linking isn’t actually illegal. The Google service will send searchers to Top100.cn, which allows users to download licensed tracks for free and sells advertising to generate revenue.
It may be futile. One statistic reports that 99% of music downloads in China are illegal, although since that statistic is provided by the industry lobbying group tohe International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, it’s almost certainly inflated. Nevertheless, Google’s deal indicates that it is not particularly profitable to ask Chinese consumers to pay for music—at least, not for a search engine.
