Negotiate an ultimatum.

Absrtact: This could have been a pillar of the creative industry, the piracy hit nearly collapse, the record companies rely on the tone of life, in the user behavior changes in the serious decline; telecom operators set up a pay-ring model, by the free music of smartphones dismembered

This could have been a pillar-oriented creative industry, hit by piracy nearly collapsed, record companies rely on the tone of life, the user behavior changes in the serious decline in the mobile phone operators to establish a pay-for-ring model, by the free music of the smartphone fragmentation of the broken; Copyright Collective management organizations should receive tens of billions of royalties, is not collected is not to be divided into the hands of copyright owners, forced the copyright party tried to force the main channel-internet companies charge, but it seems that netizens do not agree ...

This is a meeting about the future way of life in the music industry. November 8, Evergrande's managing director, Songko, CEO of Lu and the managing director of Huayi Brothers Music Company, flew to Hong Kong to meet with three major copyright dealers-Warner, Sony and global record companies.

At the meeting, they plan to focus on the determination of network music MP3 fees "Dead-line" the latest time, charging methods and network MP3 Click, download the Third-party monitoring platform, and the proportion of the site and other specific issues.

In Songko's view, music rights people can not accept the internet music "free lunch" and then continue to exist. "If you are not willing to charge, then don't do it, we will no longer authorize these sites-willing to pay a lot of websites!" In fact, Songko and his partners are planning to charge users with the premise that "all sites are collected together." Because, one does not charge, other home website will not collect, and will certainly lose the user.

Although many people have said that the deadline for specific fees is still under discussion, but the expectations of this period are expected early next year. The version circulated online is: The music payment system will be introduced on December 31, 2012 to provide high quality music with a code rate above 320kbps.

Cell phone max music client Shi Jianping, president of the multi-meter music revealed: In the download of music fees, the industry has basically reached a consensus, the future will be charged, will adopt a FREE + pay model, that is, the online music audition will still be free, mainly for high-quality music downloads and other value-added services. Users can choose to listen to their own music needs or choose to pay.

Negotiate an ultimatum.

Songko is not willing to disclose the end of the time users must start to pay, because it needs to be discussed with the site, but his attitude is very tough, because "this time must have." Previously, the music industry insiders said-not the end of the year is the beginning of next year.

Forcing the site to charge users is to share more copyright revenue, according to Songko's assumptions, divided into a ratio of at least 5:5. "At least this ratio!" Songko stressed, "below 40%, the industry will not develop healthily." Apple's song copyright party can get 70%, in Japan and even the copyright party can get 90%, Japanese operators only take 10%. ”

In fact, the idea of Songko is only a little higher than the previous SP-era copyright party could get from a telecoms operator. Before the music copyright party's main profit model is from China Mobile and other operators to get the share: The Chinese mobile gains 15%, the service SP and the Copyright party CP each get 42.5%, but later the SP gradually withdrew from the historical stage, this ratio became CP and operator 5:5 split.

Now, copyright founder attempts to replicate this pattern on the Internet. In accordance with the initial assumption of Songko, the future on the Internet through the "monthly" and "Download" two major models, a variety of packages, such as a monthly 20 Yuan unlimited listen, download is 1 yuan per first. Of course, the monthly fee will probably be proposed by the website.

Sea Butterfly CEO Lu Personal opinion is, the best monthly 5 Yuan Unlimited to listen to, because this is China mobile over the years to explore the best price. But Songko a bit unwilling to "so cheap", he even felt that the music is a kind of disrespect. Because he was small when 50 yuan living expenses are willing to take out 30 yuan to buy tapes. In Songko's view, 20 yuan a month is just a few ice cream price, for people, the basic form is not a burden.

Music Copyright Party This time is iron heart no longer do "live Lei Feng", however, although Songko and sea Butterflies CEO Lu all to the newspaper that the fee for the decision site are also very supportive, but a well-known internet company insiders revealed to this newspaper, in fact, internet companies are not willing to adopt this charging mode.

Baidu official reply to this newspaper is: "For the industry, the issue of the toll, we have not yet received the ' end of the music download ' notice, Baidu has been committed to providing users with the best user experience, and attaches great importance to intellectual property protection." ”

In fact, the previous Baidu and Tencent are basically "buyout + split" mode, but buy more and the price is very low, divided into almost no, but the site is indeed the most profitable side, so the copyright party does not want to sell the copyright at low prices.

This newspaper received a copy of the material, cited by the Chinese Audio-visual Association Record Industry Committee (hereinafter referred to as "singing") compiled data report shows that the Chinese music pay network is Tencent and Baidu. Tencent spends about 30 million yuan a year on music royalties, while Baidu pays about 40 million a year. But the singing council according to the listed company earnings, Internet Association ranking platform to provide music plate flow and total flow ratio, and so on data and algorithms, the final results of the Web site music revenue number is quite alarming: Tencent online music revenue should be between 400 million and 600 million, while Baidu in 130 million to 580 million.

Bite

In fact, the final fee for the brewing and communication with major music sites has been nearly a year. Initially, the "three big"-Sony, Universal and Warner-launched a "One-stop" (OSC) at the beginning of the year, when they presented a preliminary idea that was almost entirely different from the current situation, that the charges were not complete and the implementation was not high.

The current scheme is basically the result of Songko and the gradual revision of the mainland record company.

And record companies have banded together in 2012 to launch such a toll-winning order because smartphones have changed the only way they can survive in years.

In recent years, most of the record company's revenue comes from telecom operators-5 yuan monthly download and ringtones, these users are basically included in the package. But with the popularity of smartphones, the use of music players allows users to download songs free of charge through WiFi, the 5 yuan music download package moved by the impact of the decline. And the ring tone market has saturated, and the largest users have been in the two or three-line cities, these areas of user behavior has changed, the color ring business shrink, resulting in the two years the record company's survival status also continued to decline. If according to Song Ke, a song from the lyrics composition to recording completed, the cost of at least 50,000 yuan per first, if the coverage of marketing, then the cost of each song at least 100,000-the record company bear Heavy.

Of course, the decline in the record company's income has affected the living environment of the upstream musicians, so a large number of musicians have changed careers. Musician Xiao Ke in 798 made a small theater, Zhang Weining also opened a Hong Kong-style hotpot shop, Wenshan opened a variety of restaurants ... In fact, there are many more musicians in various ways into the film industry or other industries.

Lu Ten years ago also looked at the industry has thousands of music companies, now have to collapse the transformation, only dozens of, the vast majority of the shrinking of ten or twenty people in the workshop scale, tens of thousands of songwriters can not rely on the creation of the royalties to earn a living.

Le China CEO Du Hua revealed that the current industry's largest number of music record companies are small, Leroy and other industries larger companies also fifty or sixty people, no amount of staff can not afford.

Singing working committees Jiang, Director of the Secretariat, said that in fact, music has been the first major demand on the Internet, to 2010 years before and after the instant communication and search over, become the third largest demand. In his view, the music industry should not be like this.

In the view of Songko and other record companies, internet companies can make huge profits from music, and must share revenue with the upstream. Of course, the Internet company is also the record company is the only way to receive money-Tencent, Baidu, Sina, Sohu are listed companies, if not authorized, it is impossible to provide music services, otherwise it can be compensated through legal proceedings.

In fact, the record companies are not without other channels of fees, but they cannot get them.

Parasitic

The record company or the music Copyright party actually has six main toll channels: the Internet, karaoke karaoke, telecom operators, radio and television stations, shopping malls cafes and other background music venues as well as commercial performances, but there is no channel to really feed the record company.

According to the data in the report of the reporting committees, in the radio and television music market, in 2011, the association received a copyright fee of 20.25 million yuan for broadcasting and television, but the income was not distributed to the music rights holders; The State stipulates that the field performance should be drawn up at 4% of the box office as music copyright, which is collected by the HS and should be 80% Issued to the copyright owner. However, the 2010-year situation is that the music Association live concert Copyright revenue is only 2.68 million yuan, accounting for all the business performance of the copyright 0.78%.

Look again Wireless, 2011 Telecom Wireless Music users 700 million people, mobile phone wireless music users 163 million people. Wireless music Market total revenue of more than 30 billion yuan, wireless music copyright owners should receive royalties 15 billion yuan, but actually received only 514 million of the royalty, only the total market size of the 1.7%--monopoly operators in the form of functional fees, membership fees to detain more than 95% of the income. This was dubbed the "savage deprivation of musicians" by the record industry.

It is reported that the voice of the association has live performances, background music, radio and television music, karaoke karaoke, audio reproduction license and other copyright collection, currently has more than 6,000 members, deputy 205,000 Copyright, the company has less than 1% copyright, personal copyright of 29% or so. The information disclosed in the report of the Singing and reporting committees is that the annual royalty receivable is 20.8 billion, which is 40 million and accounts for 0.19% of the receivable.

And the music may receive the other main channel of royalty--karaoke bar Royalty Collection representative Body "Sound Collection Association" (China Audiovisual copyright Collective Management Society), the annual royalties receivable 7.28 billion yuan, only 120 million (2010), but the charges and operating costs as high as 73.6%, the money of 8% Distributed to technology platform developers "Chinese digital technology", 23% assigned to the Copyright Operations Center, 13.2% assigned to the Music Association, 4.4% assigned to the sound set, and 25% allocated to the unit "Tianhe Culture Group" and "Trina Group subsidiary".

After excluding the "cost" of these stakeholders, only 26.4% of the shares that are paid to the copyright party--22% of which also need to be allocated to music copyright overseas, the "big copyright", and the remaining 4.4% are "other rights", which is part of all mainland record companies.

In fact, apart from the relatively small proportion of the distribution of karaoke rights, there is also the problem that the total amount of the copyright revenue of the association was 140 million yuan in 2009, only 120 million in 2010 and only 100 million in 2011.

Of course, the more than 7 billion figure may be just a theoretical result. Voice Set Association deputy Director-General, Director-General Wanghuapeng to this newspaper to confirm that the two years of the Music Association's income is probably between 1.1-120 million, but did not explain the distribution of proportional issues. He said that these allocations were passed by the Governing Council, and the first task of the Music Association is to let the record company and the copyright party satisfied, and the whole charge is a process, to take it slow.

Users are difficult to accept

Songko and his partners are confident about the charges, as it may actually bring more revenue to the big sites. But the plan also needs to be "accepted" by the market.

In fact, insiders are "wary" of this "charging" model-the spirit of the Chinese Internet is "free", fearing that fees will drain users to rivals, and that some may abandon online music channels.

Sina once on "downloading music to charge, would you?" Conducted a survey, as at 12 o'clock Noon, November 8, 84.4% of users chose to "insist on listening to free music", in the hypothetical "monthly download, 20 yuan per month," A only 6.3% of the support rate, select "Download by track, a song one Yuan (hypothesis)" Only 4.7%, the remaining 4.7% Vote for "other".

In fact, Tencent Music has tried before, ordinary users to enjoy music free of charge, download high-quality music will need to buy "green diamond" service. Tencent music former general manager Zhu Dahin recalls, years ago the entire Network music fee environment is not mature, the whole listens to the music many people, but is willing to buy the green diamond person is not so many. It would be a good thing if the charges were made today.

Yes, netizens may not need so high quality MP3, for most people, may not be clear between 5M and 30M MP3 between the quality of what difference.

Why not let Baidu, Tencent more pay to buy copyrights, continue to provide free music to netizens? Or why not let netizens get free music enjoyment by watching advertising?

Songko that the advertising model doesn't work on the music product, because the Netizen listens to the music only to need to click on the page to open once, then will leave, at all not like the news content needs to stare continuously to look, any marketing advertisement advocate can not put too many advertisement in the music this product, because people is listens to the music with the ear, Instead of listening to the eyes-the defunct music websites proved that the advertising model doesn't work in music.

"It was originally designed to prop up the internet, so it sacrificed some industries, but now the Internet is up and the Internet companies have circled the users and the free time is over," he said. "Songko don't understand why other industries have to pay for their products, and music is a commodity, why shouldn't they charge?"

However, the charges will also have practical operational difficulties. Although Songko to the newspaper that "technology is not difficult", can entrust a third party to establish a data platform, but a large company's internal staff revealed that in fact, can not calculate the actual number of downloads is a problem-"the site will not be open to copyright owners of this data."

Piracy is also a real problem that copyright owners must face. Although Songko believes that once the charges have been implemented, is that all genuine copyright companies to help the record company to fight piracy, but the Shanghai Jiao Tong University lecturer in media and design, Wei, said, "single on a ' full blow ', the cost of the big, ultimately, users, taxpayers in the commitment." ”

In addition, there is an unavoidable problem within the record company: there is disagreement within the copyright party. A person familiar with the matter said many small and medium label companies want a free model of hot songs, and then to make money, these small and medium-sized companies really rely on the record is not much, many songs after the popular, through other licensing or concerts to make money, then these small and medium-sized companies will not be keen to charge, and may disrupt the price system.