In the fierce competition of music streaming platform in the past few years, copyright has been the focus of contention. But NetEYun Music, which has been having a headache for copyright, seems to have ushered in a bumper year of copyright this year.

NetEase, Inc Yun Music announced a strategic partnership with Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), which partly owns the recording rights of well-known singers such as Avril Lavigne, Cranberry and Jason Mraz, as well as the lyrics and songs of Bruno Mars, David Bowie, Nirvana and Suede.

The scope of cooperation between the two sides includes music copyright, music IP in-depth development and so on. Since the beginning of this year, NetEase, Inc Yun Music has successively announced copyright cooperation with Studio Ghibli, Rolling Stone Records, Warner copyright and Shaocheng Times.

And the most interesting thing behind these collaborations is:Among the partners, there are many copyright holders who were originally exclusively licensed to Tencent Music Entertainment Group (Tencent Music for short).。

For example, NetEyun Music holds hands with Universal Music, one of the three major international record companies. On August 11, almost before and after, NetEase, Inc Yun Music and Tencent Music successively reached a cooperation with Universal Music. In the previous three years, the copyright of Universal Music has been exclusive to Tencent Music. NetEase, Inc Yun Music only got the sublicense from Tencent Music. This time, Universal Music licensed its music library directly to NetEase, Inc Yun Music.

So, on the face of it, copyright owners are no longer pursuing exclusive copyright licensing. Behind this, what are the copyright holders up to? Will the competition pattern of the domestic online music market change as a result?

Why don't copyright owners want to be exclusive?

The first thing to be clear isCopyright exclusivity is not the purpose of competition, but a result of competition.. In China, the struggle for exclusive copyright was once the most important way for several major music streaming platforms to build competition barriers, and the effect was the most immediate.

But the exclusive may be fragile and unstable, with the consideration of their own long-term development by record companies, musicians and other copyright parties.

"if I were a copyright owner, I would certainly not always work with one platform (exclusive cooperation), because I need a balance," said one longtime observer of the music industry to Pinkuang. "if there is a platform that has been particularly strong, it is not good for me if it is getting more and more powerful and has a growing gap with the second place, because it has strong bargaining power, and I certainly want multiple platforms to compete at the same time. "

The copyright owner chooses to cooperate with the music platform for nothing more than two points: one is the price, and the other is the media value.。

The factor of price is easy to understand, and the one with the highest bid has a better chance of winning the copyright. Price also played a decisive role in the copyright war in 2017, when Tencent Music allegedly won the exclusive rights of Universal Music and other record companies and offered several times the normal license price, a staggering premium.

However, with the in-depth development of the industry and the gradual disappearance of user dividends, the media value will gradually exceed the price and become a more important factor for copyright owners.。

Media value refers to whether a platform can operate copyright well and maximize the value of copyright. Its essence is to create influence. Having continuous influence is more conducive to creating long-term value of copyright. Copyright owners all understand that this is more valuable than the "one-off" price offered by the platform.

Product play previously learned that Jay Chou's Jewell Music originally intended to directly license NetEase, Inc Yun Music this year, the two sides have negotiated, but the final result has not been reached, the reason is largely affected by the above-mentioned factors.

Zhang Zhaoyi, chief strategy officer of HiFive, analyzes that since Jewell's copyright has always been owned by Tencent Music, the cooperation between the two sides is already very familiar, in this case, "even if NetEase, Inc Yun Music pays the same price, from Jewell's point of view, it is still not cost-effective to give NetEYun Music exclusive, it will hurt their listeners, because they are more accustomed to listening to Jay Chou in QQ Music and KuGou." And Tencent Music also gave Jewell a lot of exposure and other support, the tacit understanding of cooperation is indeed more than NetEYun music. "

The copyright owners pay more attention to the media value, which to a certain extent explains the cooperation between the major record companies and the short video platform.

For example, this year, Jewell has reached copyright cooperation with Douyin and Kuaishou Technology respectively.Product play learned that, contrary to the music streaming platform, the short video platform can get the copyright at a very low cost, and many copyright owners will even "beg" the short video platform to help it sing songs.

The difference between streaming and short video is that the latter is a pool of traffic, which brings more traffic, and is a good distribution channel for music copyright owners. And the form of short video also determines that it does not need to rely as much on upstream copyright content as streaming media.

Therefore, in many cases, it is difficult to say that copyright owners are loyal to a certain music platform.

This is true for independent musicians, and so are the big record companies.

"if I were an independent musician,The choice of platform depends on the needs of my own stage of career development.. The above-mentioned observer told Pinplay, "in the initial stage, I may choose NetEYun, but when it gets hot later, I want to make my audience a little wider. If Tencent Music gives me more money, I may choose Tencent Music. But one day Tencent Music may give me inappropriate resources, I may return to NetEYun, this is not possible." "

Similarly, "the big record companies know one thing: it's risky to tie their users to a platform." Zhang Zhaoyi, who has experience in operating a record company, said that in fact, this also explains that even if Universal Music has an investment relationship with Tencent Music, it will still choose to license the copyright to NetEYun Music. "Big record companies think more about long-term development, rather than short-term quick money on copyright, because in addition to making money, they also have to protect their own artists and consider a lot of factors.。」

Has NetEyun music "turned over"?

Although copyright owners have a tendency to stop making copyright exclusive, it is still not easy for NetEase, Inc Yun Music to catch up with Tencent Music.

We can first take a look at several copyright cooperation reached by NetEase, Inc Yun Music this year. Take the cooperation reached with Warner copyright (Warner Chappell Music) in May this year as an example, in which NetEase, Inc Yun Music actually got the copyright of words and songs owned by Warner Music.

Generally speaking, the copyright of a music work consists of two parts: the copyright of recording and the copyright of ci and qu. The recording copyright is more commonly called "master band" in the industry, and it is also translated into "mechanical copyright" in English. It is the actual complete work that we hear singers sing, and the "exclusive" emphasized by the music platform usually refers to the recording copyright. The copyright of lyrics and songs is often linked to cover works. For example, last year's "Summer of the Band" admired the band's cover of Faye Wong's "I do". You need to obtain the song's lyrics and songs copyright in advance (the original version of Faye Wong's "I do" on the music platform belongs to the recording copyright).

Therefore, compared with the recording copyright, the ci and qu copyright is not so "explicit".For the music platform, the recording copyright is the most valuable.. Or it can be understood that the original song is more valuable to a music platform than the cover song.

This can explain the cooperation between NetEase, Inc Yun Music and Warner copyright. In fact, in the copyright cooperation reached by NetEase, Inc Yun Music this year, there are also a considerable part of the copyright of ci and qu, and this cooperation with BMG includes part of the copyright of recording and part of the copyright of ci and qu.

The fact is that there are still many record companies whose recording rights are exclusive in Tencent Music's hands. NetEase, Inc Yun Music still needs to obtain a sub-license from Tencent Music if he wants to play these songs on the platform.

And according to product play understanding, Tencent Music has some recording rights that are likely not to be delegated, such as Jay Chou and May Day.

At this point, copyright will still be a headache for NetEYun music.

"copyright is the core competitiveness of [the music platform], but the volume of qu Ku is not. Zhang Zhaoyi told Pinplay that this determines who owns the head copyright, the greater the advantage. He said, for example, "Hsueh Chih-chien's songs are played on the order of 1 billion a year, but this can still be a challenge to BMG's millions of music libraries. "

However, as mentioned earlier, copyright competition is on the one hand, and platform operation is equally important. For now, NetEase, Inc Yun music is not bad, coupled with BABA's capital injection, as well as its existing exclusive and delegated, its survival is not a problem.

As Zhang Zhaoyi told Pin to play, "although the music library of NetEyun is not as good as Tencent Music, it is also very efficient for the maintenance of user stickiness."... Is copyright valuable and can it constitute a barrier? It is a barrier, but it is also being disintegrated. "