|
This is destined to be a turbulent year for the online music industry.
Recently, a rumor about Baidu Music and QQ Music being sold has attracted the attention of the industry. QQ Music responded that the rumor was untrue and has been handed over to legal authorities for handling. Baidu Music, which is also involved in the sale rumor, is not so resolute.
Baidu Music said it would not respond to the sale rumors, while Taihe Group, which is rumored to take over Baidu Music, has an ambiguous attitude. Liu Xin, COO of Taihe Group, told Tencent Technology that Taihe Maitian has cooperated with Baidu Music for a long time, and there have been various levels of cooperation. In the past two years, there will be more integration in the music industry, and it is not surprising that various models will appear. In the end, the official announcement will be the main result.
At present, Ocean Music, QQ Music and Ali Music are the three platforms that hold the most music copyrights in China. Among the three giants of BAT, Baidu not only did not participate in the competition of large-scale copyright hoarding, but also had little to offer in terms of product form, and it seems that it has begun to consider leaving online music.
Various signs indicate that online music is on the eve of a major reshuffle. The regulation of copyright is the catalyst for huge changes in the industry, but the deeper reason comes from the fact that the music industry has to make changes after facing the long-term chaos in online music.
Baidu’s dilemma: Piracy model has no future
The model built on a piracy environment is difficult to reverse, which may be the main reason why Baidu Music has been at a disadvantage in competition in recent years.
Baidu Music has never really built its own music library, but has provided music services by providing music links. Such links from unknown sources can circumvent the platform's copyright responsibility when reported - just delete the link, also known as the safe harbor principle, which was once a magic weapon for online music platforms to avoid copyright supervision.
Baidu has also tried to legalize music. In 2011, Baidu Music announced that it would delete all pirated music links it provided for search by the end of June of that year, but it was obviously difficult to implement this approach. In fact, the action of deleting pirated links ended up being just a slogan.
However, as copyright supervision becomes increasingly strict, Baidu Music's previous skirting of the law is no longer feasible. On the one hand, continued investment in copyrights will not generate returns in the short term; on the other hand, Baidu's original piracy model is difficult to reverse and it is difficult to gain the trust of record companies.
The model is difficult to reverse, and the mobile side is slow to develop. Multiple factors have put Baidu Music into a development dilemma.
There are reports that Baidu Music's business was abandoned by the group's strategy last year, and recent rumors that Baidu Music will be sold have made the future of Baidu Music unclear. There are also reports that Baidu Music may not be sold, but split up. Although there is no clear result surrounding the speculation surrounding Baidu Music, all signs have shown that Baidu Music is experiencing shocks.
Exclusive cooperation: copyright holders and music platforms work together to break through
Baidu Music’s predicament is just a microcosm of the online music industry on the eve of a reshuffle. The catalyst for the industry to enter a reshuffle is the changes taking place in the market and regulation.
Ocean Music is the first "catfish" in the copyright market. In 2013, Xie Guomin, former vice president of Sina and head of Sina Music, founded Ocean Music. Relying on the connections he had accumulated in the record industry, Ocean Music, led by Xie Guomin, has been purchasing copyrights on a large scale since its inception. Its envisioned profit path is: when record companies' licensing fees are low and they are short of money, sign as many long-term exclusive agency copyrights as possible at low prices, so as to have a large enough share of music market copyrights, and then obtain profits through sublicensing or rights protection.
Driven by Ocean Music's low-buying and high-selling, copyright prices have been rising steadily. It is reported that in 2011, when Baidu Music signed a cooperation agreement with the three major record companies (Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music), the total price was only 30 million yuan, but Xiami recently spent about 20 million yuan to purchase the copyright of a Taiwanese record company, Huayan.
In order to improve their competitiveness, other music platforms later purchased copyrights and promoted exclusive cooperation. At the same time, record companies gradually accepted the exclusive cooperation mode in order to maintain market order. Driven by both sides, exclusive cooperation gradually became the mainstream cooperation mode.
Dream of course is the interface music label of the two major talent show platforms, The Voice of China and Sing My Song, and is one of the largest music labels in mainland China. Dream of course CEO Zhang Yong told Tencent Technology that the platform first proposed the exclusive copyright cooperation, and as the copyright holder, it was difficult for him to accept it at first, because it meant that the promotion channels for his own artists and songs would be greatly restricted.
For record companies, choosing to cooperate with platforms is not just about copyright income, but more importantly, it is about promoting their artists and works through the platforms. From this perspective, exclusive cooperation is not the best way of cooperation.
However, the current situation of the copyright market made Zhang Yong gradually realize that choosing exclusive cooperation is the best option under the current circumstances.
In the context of rampant piracy, for platforms, the exclusivity of exclusive cooperation can guarantee the platform's advantage in music library. For copyright holders, after obtaining exclusive authorization, the platform has greater motivation to protect rights and crack down on piracy, which can make up for its own shortcomings in protecting rights and promote market standardization.
Zheng Wenjie, coordinator of the digital content business department of HIM International Music, told Tencent Technology that exclusive cooperation is a strategy at this stage that can standardize the entire market. Therefore, copyright holders are willing to cooperate with platforms through such a strategy to standardize the market.
With the joint efforts of copyright holders and platforms, exclusive copyright has gradually become the mainstream form of cooperation between the two parties. As a result, the copyright arms race between platforms has become more intense. Although each platform is very secretive about the amount of copyright purchase, according to industry insiders, the copyright of mainstream record companies currently starts at tens of millions.
In this race for land grabbing, QQ Music, Ali Music and Ocean Music have become the main contenders. QQ Music has signed the most exclusive copyrights, Ali Music has also obtained eight high-quality copyrights, Ocean Music has a large number of copyrights but the quality is not high, and Baidu, one of the three giants of BAT, has only signed a contract with South Korea's SM Entertainment. As high-quality copyrights are divided up, the platform crisis of lack of copyright reserves is gradually emerging.
Difficulty in sublicensing: Pricing problems fall into a vicious cycle
Although exclusive copyright has become the main form of cooperation between platforms and record companies, platforms without copyright reserves are not without solutions. In fact, regulators and platforms are promoting copyright transfer to break the dilemma of some platforms having no copyright. However, this solution agreed upon by major players is fraught with difficulties in actual implementation.
The main difficulty in promoting copyright sub-licensing lies in pricing.
The person in charge of copyright procurement at QQ Music told Tencent Technology that after obtaining the exclusive copyright from a record company, QQ Music will proactively contact other platforms and issue invitations for sub-licensing, but in reality only a few sub-licensing cooperations are reached.
At present, the copyright cooperation mode between the platform and mainstream record companies is "prepayment + profit sharing", that is, the platform must first pay a copyright pre-sale fee before it can include the record company's songs in its own music library. After that, each song will be charged separately based on the traffic such as auditions and downloads, and the profit will be shared with the record company.
The basis for pricing is to establish a sound business model, but since most platforms have not promoted legalization before, that is, they have not established a calculation system, and do not know whether the traffic of each song exceeds the minimum guarantee for sharing. There is no positive way to form, so it is unknown what the price of copyright is, which leads to the difficulty of pricing in the current copyright market.
Regarding the difficulty of pricing, Zhang Yong expressed his frustration: "This issue has been discussed since five or even ten years ago, that is, the Internet charging model, what should be the most benign, healthy or transparent. For record companies, we also hope to get first-hand data to know how much a song download should cost, how much the platform gets and how much the record company gets, but so far there is no definite answer to this issue. Different websites have different ideas, so until now there is no way that everyone can come up with a way to discuss together."
In this regard, Zheng Wenjie also revealed her concerns: "I think that the current charging is still a niche, so whether the amount calculated in this way is an accurate market fair price remains to be discussed."
However, the legalization of online music is still in progress, and it will take time to improve the calculation model. In addition, the platform that obtains the exclusive copyright actually obtains the power to distribute the copyright. With the continuous increase in copyright fees, it is difficult for the platform seeking copyright to accept the current high price. The competitive relationship between platforms makes price negotiations full of suspicion and distrust. According to Tencent Technology, only NetEase Cloud Music has reached a sub-licensing cooperation with QQ Music, and the sub-licensing negotiations with other platforms are still in progress.
Platform competition: Operation will be the decisive factor
As domestic user habits cannot be reversed for the time being and copyright investment by various platforms continues to expand, the online music industry will remain a bottomless pit requiring continuous investment in the short term, and the industry will gradually become a game for giants that relies on resources and capital.
Although the support from giants has won some platforms more time to develop, how to operate the copyrights in hand to tap into greater value is also the key to the sustainable development of current online music platforms.
Operation will become the decisive point in the platform's next competition, mainly based on the following two reasons.
First, against the backdrop of increasingly fierce competition for copyrights, record companies’ considerations for platform selection are shifting toward factors other than copyright fees.
Zheng Wenjie said that when choosing a platform, the promotion and marketing capabilities of singers are the key considerations. "Since they paid such a high price to buy our content, they must do something. We are more afraid that (the platform) will take the content and not do anything."
Zhang Yong also revealed that the platform's support for record companies is a major factor influencing record companies' choice of partners. He introduced that Dream Music certainly has many staff members who communicate with the platform's editors every day to plan the promotion plans of its artists. For example, the communication model between QQ Music and record companies is that the department responsible for copyright procurement will communicate with the record companies about the general promotion plan, and then implement it to the specific editing, promotion and other teams.
Secondly, in addition to promotional capabilities, record companies will also consider the actual benefits that the platform brings to them.
In order to solve the pricing problem caused by the lack of an established business model, some platforms have tried to make changes at the distribution stage, hoping to fundamentally solve the charging problem by changing the distribution model.
Zhang Yong said that as the copyright situation gradually improves, record companies are also willing to try more profit possibilities with platforms, such as the digital album release attempt launched by QQ Music. Dream will certainly try it out. This year, Dream will release 5 digital albums of "The Voice of China" with QQ Music. Zheng Wenjie said that Huayan reached a cooperation with Alibaba Music this year mainly because of Alibaba's experience in e-commerce, and hopes to make more attempts with Alibaba in online music distribution in the future.
At the same time, as the platform data continues to accumulate, differentiated operations will be the future development trend. The person in charge of copyright procurement of QQ Music believes that "with the advancement of legalization, the platform has a complete and systematic statistics of data traffic and will know the preferences of the audiences on each platform. In the future, the platform will conduct different operations based on the preferences of the audiences."
In addition, derivative products around music have gradually become a test field for platforms to explore profit points, such as live broadcasts of concerts. QQ Music and Alibaba Music each have multiple platform supports, which can provide support for fully exploring the potential value of music. The copyright holders' preference for platform operation capabilities will further intensify the accumulation of advantages of the giants.
The trend of legalization in the online music industry is irreversible, and legalization and operation will test the platform's resources and capital strength even more. The industry is gradually becoming a game for giants, which may mean that the reshuffle of online music will accelerate.
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. |
