After Google (GOOG) launched a free genuine music search service, Chinese search engine Baidu (BIDU) has now also taken action to resolve the problems brought by pirated music and the search company ahs launched a channel for newly published songs and music.
The new channel, which is entitled "New Song Debut", is a cooperation with seven record companies, including Emperor Entertainment Group, Ocean Butterflies Music Group, EMI Music, Music Nation, Rock Records & Tapes, Huayi Brothers and B in Music.
The channel has released the first batch of nine albums, including artists JJ Lin and Xu Wei, and it will include more new albums in November 2008. However, the new channel will only offer streaming audio functionality rather than a full download service.
Baidu is expected to continuously enlarge the range of genuine music on its website through the New Song Debut channel. Previous to this, Baidu was accused and sued by the Music Copyright Society of China, the China Audio-Video Copyright Association and the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers for music copyright infringement. To handle the pirated music problem and to repair its relations with record companies, by June 2008 Baidu had reached copyright agreements with more than 70 record companies.