20 Jul 2011

China search engine signs music deal

1:40 pm on 20 July 2011

China's most popular search engine has signed a deal with three of the world's biggest music labels.

Baidu signed an agreement with a joint venture owned by Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music to distribute music through its MP3 search service, the BBC reports.

Baidu will pay the owners of the music rights on a per-play and per-download basis.

The company said all outstanding litigation had ended as part of the deal.

China is the world's biggest internet market with close to 470 million users.

The venture steps up Baidu's rivalry with Google, which closed its China search engine last year but still operates a music download service in the country.