Chinese search engine giant, Baidu announced its partnership with One-Stop China, a joint venture of Universal, Warner, and Sony BMG, to tackle the music piracy in China. Once the collaboration is finalized, searches for music tracks will be directed to the official online music stores. Here, Chinese netizens – a mighty throng of 470 million – can easily search and download the music legally. Baidu has also promised to remove links that lead to sites that contain pirated content. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s estimation, 99% of online music in China is pirated. The IFPI also reported that global music industry generated a revenue of only $75m in China in 2009 compared with $4.6bn in the United States. This agreement is not only a strong step forward in the fight against music piracy in the corrupt Chinese markets, but sets an example for search engines in North America and worldwide.  Although somewhat late, record labels are finally starting to utilize digital distribution to effectively battle against piracy. This is definitely the right step for the music industry, which is now gunning to provide cheaper and easier ways for the consumer to acquire music in the hope to discourage illegal downloads. Source: Gaurdian Business Engadget Sarana Sop Sarana@wishpond.com

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