Google’s China Music Service Gains Fans

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google’s China music service is gaining fans and advertisers.

Google’s music search, launched in March and currently available only in China lets users download and stream licensed songs free.

The service is a joint venture between Google and Top100.cn, a site owned by Chinese company Orca Digital.

Other music services around the world currently require users to buy individual songs or albums, or pay subscription fees. Those approaches have had limited effectiveness in combating online music piracy that has devastated the music business in recent years.

The Google China service includes tracks from the world-wide catalogues of the world’s four biggest music labels, Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA’s Universal Music, EMI Group Ltd., and Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment.

Google and the labels hope the service will draw users away from the U.S. search giant’s Chinese competitors, especially Baidu Inc., which had a 61% share of search revenue in China as of the second quarter compared with Google’s 29%, according to research firm Analysys International.

Baidu and other Chinese search sites have generated significant traffic through search pages that help users find and download unlicensed music tracks.

Music industry executives say they also hope Google’s music service will let them track which artists and songs are popular in China, something that has been difficult in this market because of unreliable data.

The music business in China can be particularly risky, however, because in addition to piracy, companies have to deal with China’s unpredictable regulatory environment.

The Ministry of Culture recently announced a rule that requires digital music distributors in China to seek approval for individual songs. It remains unclear how this rule will be enforced, and how it will apply to Google.