Music-sharing sings a different tune

For Li Jinze, Ceng Chunnian and their friends, peer-to-peer music sharing is not about downloading copyrighted files by the thousands or depriving songwriters and performers of royalties.

Instead, sharing music among peers has a different meaning: it is about using the internet to collaborate with musicians across the mainland and finding an audience for work that might otherwise go undiscovered by the major recording labels.

Mr Li, a 26-year-old operator of a tiny music shop on the outskirts of Guangzhou, was looking for a vocalist to lay down tracks for a couple of songs he penned. He found Mr Ceng, 29, a former nightclub singer in Maoming, on the internet.