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Google Team With Yao Ming For Free Music Service in China

By Daniel Kreps
August 6, 2008 10:48 AM ET

Google and Houston Rockets' star center Yao Ming have teamed up to launch a new music service in China that will allow users to freely download licensed songs. China is already rife with music piracy, so Google figures that if people are gonna get their music for free, might as well make some ad revenue off, which the site will share with the music industry. Google linked up with Top100.cn, a site co-founded by basketball star Ming, to allow users to search and download thousands of artists and songs. As advertised on the website, you can now download Kelis' The Hits, Deep Forest and 酷玩乐队, which is evidently Coldplay in Chinese. "The Internet industry should by no means stand in the opposite camp against the music industry," Google China President Kai-fu Lee said. While it seems Google rules the world in our hemisphere, the search engine is a distant number two to Baidu.com in China, and as China has more internet users than any other country in the world, Google hopes Top100.cn will help tip the scales.

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