A Chinese music distributor has teamed up with an American counterpart to launch an online music store in China, encouraging music fans to fight against piracy.

Wawawa or www.wa3.cn, was launched earlier this month by Beijing-based R2G and the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, based in San Francisco, Sina.com.cn reported Tuesday.

The Web site is a collection of over one million recordings of international music, available in mp3 format, the report says. Its database is updated monthly. Genres span pop, rock, hip-hop, blues, country and electronica. It contains music by both mainstream and indie musicians.

The service is currently only available for Internet users in China, Sina.com.cn says.

For 20 yuan (US$2.9), a user can download music 88 times, or $0.03 per download.

This is much cheaper than music sold on Itunes, where a song usually costs $0.99.

With such an attractive price, Wawawa wants to raise awareness of music copyright among Chinese audiences, of whom 85 percent are regular listeners to online music, unofficial statistics show.

Free music downloads can be easily reached in China, despite the fact that there are many lawsuits involving music piracy.

Search engines, such as Baidu.com, which provide links to pirated music, are constant defendants of copyright infringement claims.

(CRI August 6, 2008)