The two families are about to go to court
The "rivers and lakes grievances" of the two major online music platforms in China have been upgraded again.
"Domestic online music has been difficult so far, so don’t work hard on evil ways." On April 27th, Netease Cloud Music released such a passage in Weibo, and posted a statement about Netease Cloud Music suing Tencent Music for unfair competition, pointing out that Tencent Music Entertainment Group harmed musicians’ rights and interests, infringed Netease Cloud’s copyright, and undermined fragile mutual trust among industries.
Netease Cloud Music said in the statement that for a long time, QQ music, cool music, national K songs and other products under Tencent Music Entertainment Group have infringed copyright by illegally broadcasting unauthorized songs, mass impersonating songs, following product innovation, escaping and even confronting supervision.
"Even if we all admit that unfair competition happens from time to time in business, there are few fields where nothing grows because of unfair competition like domestic online music." Netease Cloud Music said that Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s unfair competition behavior against Netease Cloud Music and the entire online music industry has been long-lasting, wide-ranging, diverse in means and tragic in consequences, and it has shown a growing trend in the past two years.
On April 27th, the reporter of Time Weekly repeatedly contacted the relevant persons in charge of Netease Cloud Music and Tencent Music, but no reply was received as of press time.
Or about to go to court
Although Tencent Music did not publicly respond. However, some media revealed that on April 27th, Chen Mo, the head of Tencent’s music public relations, stated in a circle of friends that he would not join the fight, and that touching porcelain regardless of the facts would not help the development of the music industry.
"The relevant evidence has long been preserved, and the lawsuits initiated have already been initiated." In the screenshot, Chen Mo also said.
(Webpass screenshot)
Also planning to go to court, there is Netease Cloud Music.
Netease Cloud Music revealed that Tencent Music Entertainment Group (including QQ music, cool music, cool dog music and other products) has formally filed a lawsuit against some unfair competition behaviors of Netease Cloud Music.
"We urge Tencent Music Entertainment Group to immediately rectify its products and businesses and stop all acts of unfair competition, including stopping infringement, stopping unscrupulous acts of unfair competition and investigating violations of laws and regulations in various businesses." Netease cloud music said at the end of the statement.
(Netease Cloud Music Statement)
Netease Cloud Music is not the first time to "start a war" against Tencent Music. In February, 2021, Netease Cloud Music published an article "Netease Cloud Music: Suggestions on Applying for Year-end Awards for Cool Dog Music-related Teams" on WeChat WeChat official account. The article clearly praised and belittled, and listed the plagiarism of Cool Dog Music to Netease Cloud Music.
Competition on music platforms is fierce.
In fact, since the battle for copyright started, online music platforms have always been full of gunpowder. Until recent years, under the active coordination and promotion of all parties, Netease Cloud Music and Tencent Music have reached a cooperation on the copyright of online music, but in the end, the relationship has not improved significantly.
Or more under the pressure of copyright, Netease Cloud Music can only choose to vigorously promote the strategy of original musicians in recent years. By June 2021, the number of original music registered by Netease Cloud Music exceeded 300,000, and the total number of UGC songs reached 2.8 billion. Among its monthly active users, the proportion of users producing content was about 27%.
However, the original contribution to Netease Cloud Music’s market share is still meager. According to the prospectus, according to the revenue in 2020, Tencent Music accounts for 72.8% of the market share, and Netease Cloud only accounts for 20.5%. In 2020, the revenue of TME.NYSE has reached 29.15 billion yuan and the net profit is 4.16 billion yuan.
"Competition in China’s music industry has entered a more intense state, and effective regulation of competition is the key to market development." On April 27th, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu think tank, told Time Weekly that in recent years, the monopoly trend of the domestic music market has gradually improved, but the problem to be solved is not only copyright monopoly, but also how to effectively protect intellectual copyright.
"From the perspective of long-term market development, on the one hand, it is necessary to promote more fair and effective competition in the whole market; On the other hand, it is necessary to protect the original copyright of the original author, so that the music industry can truly enter an effective cycle of sustainable development. " Jiang Yan said.