As part of the deal, on Monday the labels and Baidu agreed to a settlement endorsed by the Beijing Higher People’s Court ending all outstanding litigation. For years, the American and Chinese music industries have singled out Baidu for criticism, saying the company has enabled users to steal vast quantities of copyrighted music, accusations that spurred a number of unsuccessful lawsuits.

In February, the United States trade representative named Baidu as one of the world’s 33 “notorious markets” for piracy and counterfeiting, centering on Baidu’s practice of “deep linking,” or providing search results that direct users to unlicensed songs on other Web sites. Although American search engines have long been forced to abandon such practices, Chinese courts had ruled that deep linking was legal because the music was not stored on Baidu’s servers.

Despite those favorable court decisions, Baidu has now agreed to remove all deep links to music belonging to the three labels, though a small amount of other independently loaded music may remain available. “We’ve never wanted to stand there and thumb our noses at the recording industry,” said Kaiser Kuo, Baidu’s director of international communications. “This is a watershed moment. It’s a great way for us to deliver the best possible user experience by providing free and high-quality music and brings obvious tangible benefits to all parties involved including the labels, artists and advertisers.”

Later this year, as part of the agreement, Baidu plans to introduce a premium fee-based service which will allow paying users to download music onto any computer, tablet or mobile device from a virtual storage locker.

Mr. Kuo added that music search was profitable but had never been a source of major traffic. He said it accounted for a high of 30 percent in 2004 and was now less than 10 percent.