Selectively ignored copyright may determine the life and death of live streaming platforms

During the Rio Olympics held in August, a large number of live broadcast platforms appeared to report on the event. For example, Inke, Huajiao, and Yizhibo interviewed celebrities such as Phelps and the diving couple He Zi and Qin Kai through live broadcasts many times, and their popularity was so great that it seemed to overshadow traditional TV stations and video websites.

But it should be noted that the two Internet companies that actually own the live broadcast rights of the event are Tencent and Alibaba. When the live broadcast platform was growing wildly, the problems of copyright and infringement were once again selectively ignored by the "entrepreneurs".

Why do copyright infringement incidents in sports live broadcasts happen so frequently?

Tencent and Alibaba spent a huge amount of money on this live broadcast of the Olympics.

Since CCTV had no copyright distribution measures during the 2016 European Cup, all video platforms were prepared to not get the Olympic network broadcasting rights. But on July 20, CCTV suddenly decided to distribute the Rio Olympic network broadcasting rights. According to media reports, this non-exclusive Olympic new media copyright, which will be broadcast half an hour later than the simultaneous live broadcast, costs 100 million yuan. Tencent and Alibaba finally obtained the network broadcasting rights, so Tencent Video and Youku Tudou were able to provide Internet live broadcasts to users during the Olympic Games.

The copyrights acquired for 100 million yuan did not bring Tencent and Alibaba any obvious Olympic dividends. Instead, video sites without copyrights began to come up with various tricks. Various video sites and live broadcast platforms adopted various methods and even formed a larger communication matrix. For example, Sina launched the "Social Olympics", and Weibo, portals, Yizhibo, Miaopai and other channels formed an important matrix for Sina's Olympic content production and distribution.

"At first glance, it seems that Tencent and Alibaba have been taken advantage of, and 100 million yuan has not made a difference." Industry insiders said that in the past, many TV stations that did not obtain press passes would mostly let reporters enter the stadium as spectators, record or broadcast some game clips, and make news. Now, live broadcast platforms can enter the stadium with a mobile phone and broadcast the game at a low cost, and it is full and real-time, with commentary. In fact, the boundary between news connection and live broadcast is blurred through the Internet, but there are strong copyright concerns hidden in it.

Media person Tan Min pointed out: If a live broadcast car plus a few reporters standing in the stands can broadcast the event live, TV stations would have taken action long ago. It is precisely because of respect for copyright that there is no intrusion. At the same time, Tan Min also believes that real live broadcast still requires location. Only by shooting from the best angle can users have the best live broadcast experience, which is one of the reasons why the price of live broadcast copyright is high.

But in the era of online live streaming, under the guise of free sharing and universal live streaming, live streaming platforms and various anchors have long begun to intrude and ignore copyright, and this situation has continued for a long time, especially in game live streaming.

Live broadcast of the chaotic arena

There is a joke circulating online: "Live streaming originated from shows, thrived from internet celebrities, prospered from stars, declined from advertisements, and was destroyed by pornography." Since the emergence of the live streaming industry, there have been continuous indecent videos such as "forgetting to turn off the camera and changing clothes in public", "deliberately exposing private parts", and "famous anchors instigating female anchors to take off clothes". These actions to attract attention have gradually faded from the public eye due to their lack of effectiveness in the face of increasingly fierce platform competition.

Relevant industry data show that since 2015, the number of online live broadcast platforms in China has exceeded 200. The scale of the online live broadcast market is 9 billion, covering 200 million users. The number of people online at the same time during the high-score period of each day on large live broadcast platforms has exceeded 4 million, and the number of live broadcast rooms exceeds 3,000. According to data from the Ministry of Culture, the number of online live broadcast companies in China continued to grow in 2016, with one or two companies entering the industry almost every week.

At the same time, spending money has become a key word in live streaming. According to media reports, Huya Live lost 387 million yuan in 2015, Longzhu Live lost 52.12 million yuan, and Douyu TV was also in a state of losing money. Such fierce competition and money-burning wars have also made every live streaming platform try every means to find high-quality resources, and they are also playing the edge ball of copyright very fiercely.

Taking e-sports, the first hot spot of live streaming, as an example, e-sports live streaming on major platforms is shrouded in copyright infringement suspicions. In May this year, the Douyu Live copyright infringement case, which took a year to process, was finally settled. The second-instance court made a ruling of "rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment." Douyu Live must compensate Yaoyu Company for economic losses of RMB 1 million and reasonable expenses of RMB 100,000 for rights protection. At the same time, it must publish a statement in a prominent position on the homepage of the Douyu Live website to eliminate adverse effects.

This incident, known as the "first case of infringement in live broadcasting of e-sports events," is not complicated. Yaoyu Company and the game agent operator Perfect World jointly created the 2015 DOTA2 Asian Invitational, and Yaoyu Company obtained the exclusive video broadcasting rights of the event in mainland China. Without authorization, the anchor of Douyu Company captured the event screen through the client's spectator mode and broadcast the event in real time with commentary.

"Many early internet celebrities did this. In the eyes of most viewers, such commentary is secondary creation and has become a brand new cultural and creative product." Industry insiders pointed out that some high-level executives of live broadcast platforms often believe that it is not infringement for the platform anchors to add their own comments and share with their fans based on the legal viewing of the game images pushed by Perfect World from the perspective of an ordinary spectator. In fact, this is just playing word games. Being able to legally watch the game does not mean that you can broadcast it without authorization.

Tan Min even made an analogy, inferring that if you buy a movie ticket and go to the cinema to watch a movie, can you live broadcast the movie with the host explaining it? "Unauthorized movies with bullet screens are also pirated broadcasts, and similar live broadcasts are the same."

From simple infringement to high-end imitation

However, in the judicial field, there is still no precise definition of such unauthorized live broadcasts of events. For example, in the Douyu live broadcast infringement case, the Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court and the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court both ruled that Douyu Company had committed unfair competition rather than infringing copyright in the first and second instance.

However, in the "Sina v. Phoenix.com Sports Broadcast Case" last year, the Chaoyang District People's Court of Beijing believed that sports broadcast images belong to works in the sense of copyright law. But one background that must be known is that in 2003, the State Sports General Administration listed e-sports as the 99th official sports competition event.

At the "Esports Intellectual Property Protection Seminar" hosted by the China Internet Association Mediation Center on August 27, dozens of judges and industry professionals engaged in intellectual property trials also had different views on the intellectual property protection of esports live broadcasts and esports games. However, the experts at the meeting did not disagree on the nature of the illegal act of pirating live broadcasts of sports events, but they had different views on the protection methods. "Obviously, this common determination actually puts the dispute aside," said game anchor Meiying.

However, this form of live broadcast with simple commentary or screenshots is becoming less and less attractive as competition among live broadcast platforms intensifies. Instead, live broadcast platforms have begun to adopt three routes in terms of copyright.

One is to purchase a large number of live broadcast program copyrights, or to form copyright barriers through technical thresholds, raise the entry threshold of the entire industry, and eliminate inferior coins. For example, Huajiao Live has opened a VR channel; Kankanxing has introduced an exclusive variety show live broadcast under MBC, one of the three major TV stations in South Korea, using pure Korean wave to attract Korean fans.

The second is to use original and exclusive live broadcasts to accumulate user stickiness. For example, Yizhibo's ace column "Quiet Distance". As the gold medal host of the top variety show "Super Interview" that has been broadcast for 16 consecutive years, Li Jing entered the live broadcast field alone after the column was discontinued at the beginning of the year. She continued her professional qualities in variety shows in the past. She was determined not to fight alone like other Internet celebrity anchors, but frequently invited celebrities such as Ma Li and Fu Yuanhui as guests, and showed the variety show format of super interviews again in live broadcasts. On Zhanqi TV, its original live broadcast program "Lying Man" has been broadcast for four seasons since May 2015, and has accumulated more than 60 million viewership data. Its feature is to turn the e-sports competition, which was only a niche in the past, into a reality variety show by introducing the traditional variety show methods and the gags of entertainment stars. The first broadcast of its fifth season in August reached 3.72 million online, and the total number of viewers in the first four seasons reached 60 million.

The third is that some high-quality live broadcast programs have been "copycatted". In June, Zhanqi TV publicly issued a statement saying that the new program of Panda Interactive Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd. seriously copied Zhanqi's original program "Lying Man". Although there is no final conclusion on this incident, it also revealed that when live broadcast platforms start to create their own live broadcast programs, they borrow or copy the excellent live broadcast programs of their peers or traditional media.

"This is also an inevitable process for the industry to go from being mixed with good and bad to gradually seeing the survival of the fittest," said Tan Min. "In the past, TV stations have had the experience of 'some stations copying Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the whole country copying some stations.' This level of copying may really make the live broadcast content gradually high-quality and differentiated. After all, no one wants to watch a remake with only different faces and slightly different acting skills."

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As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.