FreeHand Systems has entered into an agreement with the People's Music Publishing House in Beijing, to distribute its digital sheet music in China.

FreeHand will begin by offering titles from its classical music catalog via download in music stores and will develop a Chinese language website for direct consumer purchase.

"As the fourth largest economy in the world, China offers FreeHand major opportunities to sell digital sheet music," said Kim Lorz, CEO of FreeHand Systems. "FreeHand is already distributing its MusicPad Pro in China through Tom Lee Music. Now, this new relationship reinforces our leading role in providing access to digital sheet music to this growing market where almost every family owns a musical instrument. We see major growth potential in this market for not just classical, but also folk, jazz, blues and Western pop music."

Wu Bin, Editor in Chief, People's Music Publishing House, stated, "I am pleased and proud that PMPH will be working with FreeHand on this project. We are very excited to begin to provide more excellent music, both Western and Chinese, for our music lovers. We are looking forward to working with FreeHand and establishing our partnership, so that the over 220 million music students in China will have access to digital distribution from their local music store and directly via the new Chinese language website."

People's Music Publishing House is the leading professional music publisher in China with an over 70-year history of successfully publishing Chinese and foreign books on music, music scores, textbooks, reference books and audio visual products to the growing Chinese musician market. PMPH's annual sales, at about US$1 billion, have been growing at over 10% per year.