The reason for Google is that they are only number two in the search engine market in China. Baidu is first there and offering music downloads as well albeit without a similar deal. The reason why the Music Industry agreed to the deal is simple: Money. The majority of Chinese do not pay for music but download it from the Internet. And so it was decided that sharing some advertising revenue with Google is better than fighting illegal music downloads.

Google is restricting file downloads to Chinese users according to Mashable who were the first to publish the story. The search interface on the other hand is available for everyone.

Definitely an interesting progression especially for Chinese users who can now download music legally while everyone else in the world cannot.

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Two studios, Paramount and Universal are still backing up HD DVD and press releases suggest that they have no intention to change their stance in the near future. Movie fans are still facing the problem that a choice can’t be made if they wanted to watch movies from all studios unless they would purchase a more expensive dual player that would play Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies.

Many Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies are currently offered at Amazon for 50% off and player prices have been reduced as well. You can purchase a HD DVD player for $149.99 and get five HD DVDs free as a bonus which is an attractive offer.

My stance on this matter remains unchanged. I will boycott both formats and won’t purchase a remaining format as well if there should be a winning format in the near future. I do so mainly because of DRM and all the crap that is loaded into those players. I also have no intention to update my player’s firmware regularly because the manufacturer published a new firmware to fix some security holes.

That’s not what I want and I’m pretty confident that this is something that most consumers do not want as well – if they would know that is.

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To be honest; I do not care if that is the end, if the war will go on another decade or if everyone will come to their senses and produce one format for all movies. I can understand that companies want to push a format that they have created. What I can’t understand is that movie companies like Warner did not pressure the format creators to create one format which would be the best for the customers.

Now we have two formats and everything seems to be utterly complicated. Playstation 3 owners want Blu-Ray to win, the guys who bought a HD-DVD drive for their Xbox 360 want that format to win and everyone can’t play movies that are released exclusively for the other format.

It’s all about money of course and the company whose format is going to win will make most of it for a long time to come. Do they care about the viewers, the customers ? I don’t think so. Besides the obvious fact that many customers who already bought a new player will not be able to view all movies they are also confusing everyone who has not made a decision yet.

My opinion is that we will see players who are supporting both formats. They will cost more but are in my opinion the only reasonable way to please those who buy the players. I for one will use DVD as long as possible and boycott this insane war. I would change my mind if they would release a player that is fast, without all the copy protection and DRM and play both formats without problems. This will never happen I know but hope is still there.

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