Although a fan of jazz and pop music, 24-year-old Zhang Wei, whoworks in a UK consulting company in Beijing, confessed that sherarely buys CD except for her favorite musicians: Norah Jones andLeehom Wang, a pop singer from Taiwan.
Instead, she simply goes online and downloads music. For herfavorite musicians, she also downloads demo versions before looseningher purse strings for a CD.
"Although I am their loyal fan, not every single song of theirsinterests me," Zhang says. "Sometimes, only one particular tracksounds interesting in a whole album."
Zhang used to listen to cheap pirated CDs or music radios as apoor student. Downloading music from the Internet is "free andconvenient" to Zhang, who likes to kill time listening to MP3s whilecommuting.
Yue Zuhong, 25, who works at MTV-Asia, often downloads music fromwebsites like Baidu.com, because it saves time to find a song. "Justinput the names, and bang, they are all there."
The popularity of digital music among young Chinese was recentlyconfirmed in a survey by market research company, Synovate. In March,Synovate polled 3,857 urban respondents aged 15 to 34 about theirmusic habits, activities and attitudes in ten Asian markets includingChinese mainland, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.
The survey shows that in February, 84 percent of Chinese consumershave played music on a computer, 72 percent on an MP3 and 39 percenthave downloaded and saved a song to their mobile phone.
The survey also shows that 63 percent of Chinese respondentsdownloaded a song without paying for it and 38 percent used a file-sharing program to share music with others.
Facing the popular digital music trend, the Chinese music industryhas changed its attitude from denial to eager participation.
In 2005, seven major record companies who have branches in Chinasuch as Sony, EMI, Universe and Warner, sued Baidu.com, a Chinesesearch engine company, for illegally providing free online music anddownload service.
The record companies were unsuccessful in this case. The BeijingNo 1 Intermediate People's Court ruled in November 2006 that Baidu isa search engine service provider that links all available websitesincluding illegal ones who post pirate music on their websites,therefore Baidu shouldn't take full responsibility for it.
On January 16, 2007, EMI authorized Baidu to provide all of itsChinese songs to the public for free, in return for sharing Baidu'sadvertising income.
"Rather than getting involved in endless dispute, it would be awise change for record companies to cooperate with digital media likeBaidu," said Huang Weixiang, chairman of EMI China.
Music copyright has always been an important issue in the industrywith the biggest concern being who will pay for music in the future.
The global music industry looks at China as an ideal experimentalfield to launch a revolution, says Song Ke, CEO of Taihe Rye Music CoLtd, which was founded in 2004 as a joint venture of Rye MusicProducing Company and Taihe Media. Prior to this role, Song was achief music executive at Warner Music.
"China is a newcomer to the modern music industry and we are allfreshmen," Song explains. "The positive side is that we accept newthings fast and easily." But Song says the downside is that peoplewill not pay as long as they can still obtain free music. "The keypoint is to explore potential market and operate properly," Songsays.
The Synovate survey reveals that 14 percent of the Chineserespondents have paid to download music online - the same as theregional average.
Zhang Wei prefers free music, but she would accept paying smallmoney for quality works and services. She has subscribed to a servicefor mobile phone ringtone downloads, which charges 10 yuan ($1.30) amonth.
Ringtone is a new member of digital music industry, but it hasalready generated a market around 5 billion yuan ($649 million) thisyear, Song says.
Ringtone was born in South Korea and considered as a toy at first,Song says. However, it is estimated that the overall revenue ofringtone could reach 7 billion yuan ($909 million) in China in 2007.
The Synovate survey reveals that 65 percent of Chinese respondentsare ready to replace their mobile digital music player with a music-playing mobile phone.
"Ringtone has been the most profitable business of my company andthere is still a large potential market," Song says.
Besides consumers, new technology has also provided greatopportunities for musicians. Yue Zuhong used to play bass in a localband in Xi'an of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province. He says thatwidespread adoption of digital technology enables musicians todistribute their work widely to the public through the Internet.
"We'll find more popular songs by individual musicians from musicwebsites and private blogs," Yue says. "New technology helps giftedmusician succeed."
In 2001, Xue Cun, a musician from Northeast China, put his trackAll Northeasterners are Living Lei Feng on the Internet. Manyanonymous artists created hilarious flash pieces to match the song'shumorous lyric and lively rhythm, which made this song popular allover China. Xue Cun has since signed up with a Beijing company toproduce albums.
Nowadays, more and more music lovers put their works on the weband record companies have also spotted and signed contracts withthem.
Song says it's possible that all wireless digital music deviceswould integrate into a mobile phone and a home entertainment systemconnected to broadband. But it's hard to predict how the digitalmusic industry will develop.
"One thing is for sure: human beings will need music forever,"Song says. "I am confident with the future of digital music inChina."
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