Google on Wednesday announced that it has launched a music search service in China that allows users to access music legally online through its new service called Music Onebox. According to the company, the service is backed by some record labels and will be supported by advertising revenue.
As the AP points out, paid music downloads in China are “practically nonexistent.” According to most estimates, more than 99 percent of all downloaded files in China are pirated and legitimate sales represent less than 1 percent of the world’s total music revenue, reaching just $76 million.
Each time someone uses Google’s Music Onebox to find a song, they’re redirected to Top100.cn, which will offer them the opportunity to download the track for free. The record labels will then incur the revenue coming from the advertising on the site.
There’s no way to tell if this new model will help curb piracy in China and record labels are more than a little hesitant to allow people to download songs and rely on advertising to turn a profit, but it’s the first step in the right direction that could see them come around and start trusting the Web a bit more.
That said, this will never come to the United States. Let’s face it – iTunes is the world’s largest music retailer and people seem to be more than happy buying music that’s littered with DRM. Realizing that, why would the music industry want to bring an ad-supported downloading business to US shores? It wouldn’t make any sense.
The only reason record labels have agreed to stand behind Top100.cn is because they know they’re losing loads of cash in China as each day passes and more people pirate music. Piracy isn’t just a problem in China, it’s so commonplace that hardly anyone knows someone that downloads songs legally. Can the same be said for the US where the RIAA is trying its best to crackdown on the small percentage of pirates? I didn’t think so.
Top100.cn is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at making the Chinese turn to legitimate sources of music and curb piracy in the country. If that ever happens, this service will die and the music industry will try to force DRM on every Chinese person, much like they do with the Western world today.
And as much as I would like to see a service like this in the US and abroad, it just won’t happen.
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Don,bIG IN ACCURACYS IN YOUR ARTICLE 1st off you say there is only a small percentage of piracy in the U.S.WRONG! Did you know that Itunes, Rhapsody,napster,and all other legal music services combined only make up 8% of all music downloaded in the U.S. that leaves 92% of the people who download music in the U.S. doing so on illegal sites and that my friend is a huge monetary loss to the major record labels.Thats why the major labels have allowed free ,legal add supported downloads in the U.S. Qtrax is now up and running with free downloads available from Universal music group and EMI and just about all the independent labels out there Totally legal free and adding more music daily … Get your facts straight Don
Don,bIG IN ACCURACYS IN YOUR ARTICLE 1st off you say there is only a small percentage of piracy in the U.S.WRONG! Did you know that Itunes, Rhapsody,napster,and all other legal music services combined only make up 8% of all music downloaded in the U.S. that leaves 92% of the people who download music in the U.S. doing so on illegal sites and that my friend is a huge monetary loss to the major record labels.Thats why the major labels have allowed free ,legal add supported downloads in the U.S. Qtrax is now up and running with free downloads available from Universal music group and EMI and just about all the independent labels out there Totally legal free and adding more music daily … Get your facts straight Don and what about spiralfrog ?
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