So far there is not much in the way of English language coverage of this story, but here is a translated version of Google’s blog post on the matter. This service is intended to boost Google’s fortunes in China, a market in which it is being comprehensively outgunned by resident search behemoth Baidu. Baidu themselves have responded to these announcements, translated here.

A quick search suggests that they do indeed have a deep catalogue. Try it for yourself here.

Bizarrely, however, at least one song we found had the following in the tagging: “RiP BY MUJi”, suggesting that their MP3s are not from the most wholesome of origins.