Today, Baidu announced a deal with three major music labels to offer free legal music to its users for download and streaming. Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music have partnered for the deal, creating the One-Stop China joint venture. It will also remove all pirated music links from the search results.
“Baidu has always striven to provide the best possible experience to our users,” Jennifer Li, chief financial officer of Baidu, said.
“Our partnership with One-Stop China marks an exciting new beginning. I’m confident that Baidu, the Chinese music fans, recording artists, and the record companies alike will all benefit from this win-win partnership,” she added.
Baidu will only link original licensed music tracks from its music search service. More than 500,000 original tracks will be available for users for download and streaming. Baidu is also launching a social music site, ting!, through which the songs will also be available for free to members.
“Under the terms of the deal, Baidu will remunerate music content owners on a per-play and per-download basis for all tracks delivered through the Baidu MP3 Search service, as well as Baidu’s newly launched social music platform, ting!,” Baidu revealed.
Google has already offering free music in China. But Baidu has more than 84 percent search share in China. This new music service will surely out beat Google’s music search service.
