Baidu strikes deal to pay record companies for music

China's leading search engine Baidu will now pay three major record companies for music downloads on its site, after years of facing criticism for hosting links to pirated songs. Baidu announced that it had signed an agreement with One-Stop China, a joint venture which Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music are shareholders of. Under the agreement, the three major record companies will license their Chinese and International music catalogues to be streamed or downloaded from Baidu.