Tech Shout!

As music companies dragged Chinese search engines Baidu, Sohu to court over the issue of illegal online music piracy, Google seems to be getting all geared to enter into an alliance with an anonymous China-based online music company to rival Baidu.com Inc. reported Wall Street Journal.

This association will enable the search giant to offer free licensed music downloads in the Chinese market, pretty much what Baidu does, with the biggest difference being that the downloads at China’s largest search engine aren’t licensed.

Revenues will come from various value added services like ringtones and special concert listings. It’s not yet known whether the content available will only be localized one or would include international tracks too. However, what’s known is that the service will include three out of the four major labels along with several other small companies. Universal is already in, while negotiations with Sony, EMI and BMG are currently on, as per Forbes.

February is turning out to be quite a make-or-break kind of a month for Google. Apart from marking its presence in China by offering offer free licensed music downloads, the company was touted to flaunt its dominance in an attempt to stop a Microsoft-Yahoo tie-up that would threaten its online dominance in the West. Yahoo too is reportedly considering a revival of talks with Google on a deal.