Google announced Tuesday it will start offering free music downloads to Chinese customers. The Chinese Google site will allow searches by song, artist or entire album, next download DRM-free songs.

Music is hosted on China’s Top100.cn, a Chinese-based music site. The downloads will be financed by advertising, with revenue split amidst Google, the music companies, and Top100.cn.

Heading Off Piracy?

It’s estimated that 90 percent of Web users in China download pirated music with the help of search engines.

Some worldwide record labels such as Vivendi have significant stakes in Chinese recording artists, and many see the new Google service as a way to help protect that intellectual property. Pirated music is costing labels millions of dollars in lost revenue in China, where piracy is most rampant.

Apple’s iTunes Store is open and doing business in China, but it has little market share compared to the number of pirated music files on […]

Orginal post by Top Tech News