Google China deal: cynical betrayal
p2pnet news view Advertising | Music:- Could it be the at-the-moment nonexistent corporate online music business is on the verge of taking off? And that it’s all down to a deal between the Net’s most aggressive advertising company and the world’s most repressive regime?
Under the specious headline ‘Google fights for Chinese internet users with free music service,’ online advertising giant Google has opened an music site in China, “to grab a greater share of online searches in the world’s biggest internet market,” p2pnet said on Monday, quoting Times Online.
“Chinese music-lovers will be offered more than one million songs for free after Google launched a free music download site in China this week in a bid to tackle the internet piracy menace in China,” said The Telegraph, going on:
“The site, which includes songs from major world record labels including Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI, will use advertising revenue to generate cash from the downloads.”
The story failed to mention Google’s decision to get into bed with Communist China, a world leader in repression and censorship, marks one of the most blatant examples of corporate hypocrisy presented as a business triumph.
Early starters Blubster, Morpheus, BearShare and LimeWire
For a while, p2pnet was supported by advertisements from four companies with file sharing applications. They competed with each other for a share of what should have been the burgeoning online music business.
Also doing well at the time was Michael Robertson’s indie-friendly MP3.com, now owned by CNet. With it, among other things, independent musicians were able to create their own CDs of their own music and sell to online music fans.
Competition drives innovation and freedom of choice, but it’s abhorrent to Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) who prefer to try to sue people into buying ‘product’ rather than compete fairly in an open market.
They want everything to themselves so they can control pricing, distribution — everything — online in the same way they do offline.
So thanks to them and their venal attacks, early starters Blubster, Morpheus, BearShare and LimeWire (which still exists, but as a mere shadow of its former self) were crushed, and unless you count iTunes, Apple’s user-funded iPod loader, the online music business has never been allowed to take root.
Robertson, meanwhile, ran an operation called Beam-It, sparking a lawsuit which ultimately resulted in a short lived merger of MP3.com with Vivendi Universal and finally, its to CNet.
The deal between Google and Communist China is being lauded as a breakthrough when in fact, it’s a betrayal.
But as Robertson sums it up »»»
The country with extremely limited respect for IP gets rewarded with an unprecedented amazing ad based library of music.
Meanwhile here in the US Real Networks get sued for offering software which lets you play purchased DVDs on your PC, Seeqpod gets sued for offering a search engine, MP3tunes gets sued for storing personal music collections in password protected archives and Youtube/Veoh get sued for hosting user submitted content.
And as the Financial Times put it, “When it comes to China, western companies have often thrown their principles overboard. But the free music search service launched by Google together with the music industry this week breaks new ground even in this area.”
They can’t change China
The FT headline says ‘Google forced to concede to Chinese way of thinking’.
However, Google was forced to do nothing of the sort. It walked into the deal willingly and with eyes wide open in a remarkable act of hypocritical cynicism of unequalled magnitude.
Meanwhile, “It must be clear to Google and the music industry that, although they insist now this is not a model for other markets, it will be unavoidable at some point to adjust music download monetisation models in the rest of the world,” says the FT.
“After all, they have already acknowledged that they can’t change China. From there, it’s only a small step to recognising that China – a market which represents one-fifth of the world’s population – will change the world.”
Says the Wall Street Journal, “Google and its Chinese partner, Top100.cn, expect in coming months to offer more than one million tracks. They`ll come from 140 record labels, including the world`s four biggest: Warner Music Group, Vivendi`s Universal Music, EMI Group and Sony`s Sony Music Entertainment.
“Label executives, who were in attendance at Google`s launch event, said the new search would also provide the much-needed metrics on which artists are most popular, which has been hard to determine because of unreliable data.
“Executives called Google Music Search a good first step in the long road to monetizing digital music in China, where piracy has been a bigger challenge for the industry than other markets. They hope to see other models develop in China, including a la carte or subscription, but attempts at some of those, including by Top100.cn, have not succeeded yet.
“Kai-Fu Lee, Google`s Greater China president, said Music Search users were already downloading or streaming songs 1.5 million times a day.”
No need to stay tuned. You know what’s going to happen.
p2pnet – Google gets into the online music biz, March 30, 2009
Times Online – Google fights for Chinese internet users with free music service, March 30, 2009
The Telegraph – Google offers China one million free songs, March 31, 2009
Financial Times – Google forced to concede to Chinese way of thinking, April 1, 2009
Wall Street Journal – Music-Industry Execs Weigh In on Google`s China Service, March 31, 2009
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