Baidu, China's largest search engine, suspended updating its entertainment channel to prepare for the official launch of a service offering free downloads and online listening of copyrighted music, the company said Wednesday.

The move was seen as a step forward for the company to address criticism over how it handles copyright issues.

"With the continuous development of interactive entertainment models, we have launched a brand new social networking music media platform, ‘ting.baidu.com,'" Baidu said in a statement posted on its entertainment channel website.

The new service, Baidu Ting (Ting means "listen" in Chinese), which started its test version last week, has created a platform offering online music listening services to users.

"Ting is a better music product to serve user needs…In essence, searching is no longer the core user need," Catherine Leung, general manager of the company's digital entertainment business, told the Global Times in an email.

It also provides social-networking functions, which allows users to create online libraries of their favorite music and share songs with other users.

All the music in Ting is legal in contrast to Baidu's MP3 music search, which has been labeled by the US as a "notorious market" for pirated content and its ability to provide "deep linking" to unauthorized materials hosted on third-party websites.

The more than 500,000 songs in the Ting library are licensed from music labels inside and outside China, and they are expected to exceed 1 million songs within the next quarter, Leung said.

The company didn't say if or when Ting will replace Baidu's MP3 service.

The service currently can be accessed by "invitation only" and may be open to a larger base of users depending on the user feedback.

"The ‘by invitation only' arrangement is part of our marketing initiative to leverage existing social media promotion. We'll continue to monitor user feedback and decide if or when we take out the arrangement," Leung said.

Dong Xu, an analyst with the Beijing-based research firm, Analysys International, said the launch of Ting is Baidu's response to criticism over its alleged involvement in copyright infringement.

"Whether Ting will be as successful as its search service depends on how quickly it can expand its music library and improve its social-networking functions, a service Baidu does not excel at right now," she said.