In an ongoing attempt to bait advertisers and a broader slice of the Chinese audience, Google's Chinese arm has formed an alliance with a number of music labels, including EMI, Warner Music Group and Vivendi's Universal.

The labels will work in tandem to provide free music downloads to anyone in China.
usic, said they would seek to profit here by working with Google and offering free downloads of music to anyone inside China.

At present, China host the largest online audience in he world, with 180 million internet users as of December 2008 — a full 18% of the total worldwide internet audience, followed closely by the US (16.2%) and Japan (6%). Baidu is China's most oft-used search engine, primarily because of its popularity as a resource for downloading illegal music.

According to record labels which have partnered with Google to unseat Baidu, the money they lose for freely downloaded tracks can be recouped with ad revenue via the American search giant.

"The level of online advertising in China is quite mature, so we’re willing to try this out," said SVP Sandy Monteiro at Universal Music Group.