Reuters today confirmed that the struggling ad-supported free music service, QTrax (not to be confused with Pepsi’s new China based record label Q Music) has teamed up with Baidu. H/T to our friends at Outdustry.
This seems to be a very, very beneficial solution for QTrax, who will now have all music searches on Baidu referred to their free and ad supported database of legitimate content (QTrax has licenses with all 4 majors – just). We cannot see the immediate upside of this union to Baidu. It could be that QTrax are offering a exceptional amount of the ensuing revenue back to Baidu, or that Baidu sees a good strategic fit with a company already signed up with the 4 majors and already using P2P technology to deliver DRM free downloads. Will there be issues with language and compatibility? Only time will tell…
What seems apparent is that this is a significant step forward in the battle against piracy here in China.
You can read more about QTrax and their struggles HERE.
You can read the full Reuters release HERE.
The upside to Baidu of this union is pretty clear – they can now claim to have a legal music service, WHILE there is every possibility that they will continue to offer their lucrative (traffic-wise) illegal mp3 search.
Yet another case of a clueless Western company coming into China and doing a deal with a so-called big Chinese company without properly understanding the culture of how things work (or don’t) in China?
By any stretch, it is premature to call this a “significant step forward in the battle against piracy” especially when it involves 2 dubious entities like Qtrax and worse, the pirate king, Baidu!!
With Qtrax’s track record as the undisputed champ of the aborted launch in the digital music world, until the service is actually launched and we can assess how it is being executed, let’s simply file this piece of PR news under ‘fluff’.
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