Google has just announced that they will be allowing FREE legal music downloads from its Google MP3 site starting this week. The Internet giant has partnered with over 140 record labels to offer an initial 350,000 songs with the promise of increasing that number to over 1,000,000. There is only one catch...
You have to live in China!
China has always seen intellectual copyright law as more of a...ehm... guideline. The record companies, all but writing off any opportunity for legitimate music sales in the country, have decided to at least recoup some money on advertising traffic through the site.
I have to admit, its been great for us. Gabriel feels carte blanche to downloading everything under the sun and I don't have any qualms now as its all legal. Living in China has usually meant being on the wrong side of internet access. Blogs, websites, and now Youtube, are routinely blocked because someone crossed a sensitive line somewhere. So it feels good to finally have the chips fall our way...cyberly speaking of course.
2 comments:
This is one time I wish Hong Kong really was part of China - but it isn't. I tried accessing the site and was informed that "streaming/downloading services aren't available in your region." Great. iTunes won't sell anything to HK because we're a nest of pirates, yet that same logic which leads to Google giving away the stuff in China doesn't extend to us. Not fair!
Thats funny! It shows you how "not China" Hong Kong is.
I have had so many "free" things not available to me because I'm in China that this kinda feels good.
I'd still rather be in Hong Kong though ;)
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