Qtrax, a China-based online music service company, on Monday unveiled plans to receive Internet traffic from China then divert users to legitimate music downloading websites in a bid to reduce the worsening problem of piracy in the country.
The free online music service plans to offer songs to Chinese users, which can be downloaded for free.
The service was made possible after Qtrax signed a licensing deal with all the major music labels operating in China. The online firm said that it would pay royalties to the artists and producers of the music through funding coming from its advertising.
On Thursday, the company has finally made its world debut in New Zealand and Australia after several failed launches in the US. It will be recalled that the company has suffered several setbacks during its earlier launching of the 90-day trial last April.
In a memorandum of agreement signing on Monday, company officials also revealed that the China launch will be on December 17.
China’s leading search engine, Baidu.com, was also part of the deal. The search engine provider will now include a link button for Qtrax in all music searches as long as it is inside the catalog of the music provider.
Once the users click on the said link, the advertisements will now work its magic while the song is being downloaded by the users.
Qtrax chief executive Allan Klepfisz, however, said that the hundreds of millions of search in Baidu’s main webpage were not included in the deal. But he stressed that the millions of song searches in the website is “exciting enough for the company,” which will be busy in the coming weeks as Chinese users begin to use the websites.
Klepfisz also said that they are now finalizing several deals for the planned launching of the website in countries like Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore before the end of the year.
The UK and the US will follow suit in the first quarter of 2010, Klepfisz added.