MUMBAI: Search engine Google has started a free music service in China that offers songs by artists including U2, Beyonce and Kanye West for free in the world's biggest Web market by users, say reports.

The Internet company introduced the music search and download service in cooperation with Warner Music Group Corp., Sony Corp., Universal Music Group, Broadcast Music Inc. and 140 other independent labels, Google said in a statement distributed at a briefing today in Beijing. It's also working with Top100.cn, a Chinese Web site for downloading licensed online music.

Google will share revenue from advertising sold on the music Web site, generating sales for record companies in a market where 99 percent of all downloads are illegal, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The new service will help the Mountain View, California-based company match a similar offering by local Web search leader Baidu Inc.

China's digital music market has so far been stunted by mass digital piracy,... IFPI said in its 2008 annual report. As many as 71 percent of Internet users in China have downloaded music, according to the federation.

Baidu, based in Beijing, increased its share of China's paid-search market to 62.2 percent last year from 59.3 percent in 2007, according to research company Analysys International. Second-placed Google's market share rose to 27.8 percent from 23.4 percent, according to Analysys.

China had 298 million Internet users at the end of 2008, according to the government-backed China Internet Network Information Center. It passed the U.S. to become the world's biggest Web market by users in the first half of last year.