Google is set to challenge China’s largest search provider Baidu by offering free legal music.
The success of Baidu has long been credited to the search engine providing music search from its front page, but much to the lack of amusement of record companies, the music found by Baidu is nearly all pirated. Baidu fronted a Chinese Court in December, and won the day with a ruling that Baidu did not infringe copyright by merely linking to infringing music.
According to a WSJ.com report, Google’s new free music service in China is in the late planning stages and involves a joint venture with an undisclosed company. The service will offer access to music from three of the four big global music companies, as well as other smaller players, with a launch date possibly later this month.
The move into music provision would be a first for Google, and although this deal is directly in response to Baidu, there is always the possibility that with one territory in place, complete with joint venture partner and music deals, that Google could roll this out into other countries in the future. Yahoo was rumored to be considering a similar service in January, although has since closed its music service in favor of RealNetwork’s Rhapsody service. There are also a number of small players offering ad supported music as well. Either way, it’s yet another vertical where the smaller players/ startups will sleep less well at the thought that Google may enter their space in the future.
Update: Google JV partner is believed to be Top100.cn.
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Bad move. Everyone in China already gets or knows how to get free music.
How about free legal music for everyone else Google?
Can’t really see it happening unless they roll it out internationally - unless they’re so desperate to get into China they’re willing to alienate the rest of the world.
Figthing “free” with “free” is good, but to win I think may be they need to pay the user instead
Hendra
with music I’m not sure we’re at that stage yet, but having said that there are plenty of other verticals where I’d agree
It’s getting interesting now with Seeqpod being sued albeit Warner has NO CHANCE of success (this shows how desperate the labels are getting).
Literally everyone is offering free music now (legally albeit without licensing deals). Google have been scared of this space until now, but they recognize that free music is the juice that allowed Baidu to dominate.
My money is on Seeqpod coming out top in this war. They have none of the baggage that Google are carrying and will be at a loss in China as the labels will insist on a silly profit sharing deal like they did with Imeem that will do nothing else but put Imeem out of business.
Baidu will win in China and Seeqpod will take out the English speaking territories!
The only chance the labels have is to build from the ground up their own new media distribution platforms.
TechCrunch keeps prognosticating that music keeps spiraling down to free, and here is another step in that direction. I have to agree with myplaylist (#5) … there are viable models out there for the big labels to adopt, but it seems they’d rather be in court than be creative. Meanwhile, consumers and musicians alike are creating their own economies without them.
This smells like a Joint Venture with the very interesting and well thought out Harvard University Spinoff Noank Media.
http://www.noankmedia.com has a bunch more information
Folks who run Noank like Paul Hoffert, William Terry Fisher and others have been building an extremely interesting music play with features just like what it sounds like Google is doing (including pulling leading partners into place) and with some of the ex-Harvard folks over at Google, it sure looks like a natural connection.
Hope to see some of the Noank crew (as well as you) at the SanFran MusicTech Summit on 2/25/08 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. I’ll drop a bunch of folks involved with the Noank project a note today, see if we can get them to attend.
All the best,
Brian Zisk
http://www.sanfranmusictech.com
I’ll be moderating Baidu’s first English language webinar in March from Shanghai. Will be happy to incorporate a segment of Q&A with Baidu’s International Marketing team related specifically to music and also Google. In all honesty guys, Baidu is not worried about Google at all in China. With 70% of the search market in China, I wouldn’t be either. Baidu recently signed a deal with EMI music. The other major labels are also working on ways to work with them. So even if the Top100.cn rumor is true, it won’t put a dent on Baidu’s lead. Google needs to come up with a strategy that sets them apart from Baidu. Music strategy is more like playing catch up.