In addition to copyright authorization fees, does Douyin and Kuaishou still need to divide the musicians?

Author | Fan Zhihui

Recently, the domestic and foreign music industry seems not satisfied with the income distribution of short video platforms.

Let's talk about domestic. On July 8th, at the Internet of online broadcasting of the "Copyright Supervision Week" by the China Audiovisual Collection Association (hereinafter referred to as the Sound Collection Association) and the "China Press and Publication Broadcasting" and the "China Press and Publication Guangbao", the sound set was used in the copyright protection seminar of music. The Follow -ups of the copyright fee of music recording products in the webcast publicly disclosed the draft standard fees of music recording products.

Webcast copyright fee standard (draft) is so stipulated: Pan Entertainment Live (excluding K song) 100 yuan/live room/year; pan -entertainment live broadcast (including K song) 300 yuan/live room/year; e -commerce live room 10,000 yuan/live room/year.

Regardless of whether this charging standard is reasonable, this at least means that the music industry is likely to add a large -scale version of tax revenue.

The legal basis for this draft is the newly revised Copyright Law last year.

The webcast is a broadcast behavior stipulated in the new amendment of the Copyright Law. If a recording product is used in the live broadcast, the platform or anchor shall be amended in accordance with Article 45 of the Copyright Law (that is, the Copyright Law in June 1st 2021 (that is, that is, the Copyright Law (that is, that is, that is, the Copystinoma Law "(that is, "If the recording product is used for public or wireless publicity, or if it is broadcast to the public through the technical equipment that transmits sounds, it shall pay the recording producer.") Payment to the recording producer.

The reality basis comes from the live broadcast industry to obtain huge commercial interests under a large use of music. According to statistics, in 2021, the number of webcast users in my country reached 703 million, of which the market size of the live broadcast alone reached 71.9 billion yuan.

However, when the use of music recording products in the webcast has become the normal situation, the songwriter and music recording producer did not receive reasonable remuneration from it, which was excluded from the distribution of interest cakes. It is predicted that if the live broadcast room is fully paid, the entire live broadcast industry is estimated that it will bring a copyright income of 2.2 billion yuan to the music owner.

Although music recording producers generally believe that this standard (draft) unit price is low and simple and easy, and the user burdens very lightly, in half a year, the Sound Collection Confucian China Sounds Association has conducted three rates with the live broadcast platform representatives. The negotiation, but the platform party has a lot of differences in the draft of the charging standard, and the current progress is still delayed.

In order to allow the right holder to realize the legitimate rights and interests as soon as possible, the Yinji Association has begun to seek the problem of rates such as filed by litigation and arbitration.

Let's look at foreign. Tim Ingham, the founder of foreign industry media MBW, tells the three senior practitioners' concerns about the future music business: Tiktok is currently not paying to record companies and artists like Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube.

In order to show that this concern is not groundless, I Ingham specially emphasizes the identity of the three industry people: one of which comes from three major records, and the other two music distribution companies and music service companies are equivalent to bringing together industries from different links from the music copyright ecosystem. think.

At present, TIKTOK cooperates with the music company to obtain authorization within a certain period of time in the "buying model" to pay a "prepaid prepaid to consume consumption on the platform". For example, TIKTOK signed a contract with the copyright owner every year or every two years.

It is important that once these so -called "buying" checks are deposited into the bank, it is equivalent to granting Tiktok's free license to use the music company music within the agreed period. No matter how Tiktok users use these music and how many videos it created, these videos have been played by TIKTOK users how many times ... All these are irrelevant.

If you are a musician, your song has played millions of times on Tiktok. But this is likely to have nothing to do with your income from the platform, but it depends on your contract with the distributor or record company and has nothing to do with the number of playbacks.

Of course, the advantage of this cooperation model is that the record company and the copyright party can get a good prepaid. For short video platforms such as TIKTOK, the cost in a certain period of time is fixed and has nothing to do with the income scale.

And Youtube and the copyright owner use another copyright cooperation: dividing the form mode. Based on the Content ID system of YouTube, it can identify the content videos of music generated by the user, and each time a song is played -and the benefits of the benefits generated from advertising or paid subscribers will return Give copyright.

Under the "division mode", the amount of music on the platform is directly linked to the income. Whether it is watching, commenting, sharing or creative, covering, and mixing, they all provide the opportunity to participate in video monetization for music copyright owners.

In other words, the more money you make, the more money assigned to the music industry, and the growth of these money is proportional.

In ideal, these two distribution models do not matter whether they are good or bad. After all, you can't "both be or have it." However, with the explosive growth of Tiktok, some industry practitioners have more and more concerns about the "buying model".

"When talking about the relationship between music and technology, and media giants, the MBW founder Tim Ingham said that the music industry is becoming more and more worried about the same mistakes. You should guess -when you have not paid them to the artist, they will be established. A business -based business. "Several other senior music industry practitioners also mentioned that they were worried that TIKTOK would soon become too big and strong that it could not force them to reach an income division agreement (that is, the division model). "The last time the record company encountered such a scale and strength, it was MTV out of control."

In addition to Tiktok's endless concerns, the music industry is not as big as Tiktok, but it is also directly related to the bidding relationship between Tiktok and YouTube.

According to a report released by Bloomberg this year, Tiktok created a $ 4 billion income in 2021, most of which came from advertising. By 2022, Emarketer predicts that Tiktok will generate $ 12 billion each year, mainly from advertising.

In February of this year, Tiktok announced that its video length was expanded from 15 seconds and 30 seconds to 10 minutes, forming direct competition with YouTube. In order to suppress TIKTOK's expansion in the field of short video, YouTube also launched a short video product YouTube SHORTS. The two are getting closer and closer to product functions, and competition is becoming more and more enthusiastic.

According to App Annie data, in the summer of 2021, the U.S. TIKTOK users watch the content on the platform for more than 24 hours a month, while YouTube users are close to 22 hours a month. According to data provided by Data.AI through Bloomberg, Tiktok users in the United States now spend an average of 28.7 hours a month, an increase of about 6 hours from the same period last year, far exceeding 15.5 hours of the second Facebook.

With the slowdown of the global mobile Internet growth, the total length of users' Internet access is relatively stable, and the rapid growth of Tiktok will inevitably snatch YouTube's users and business, especially advertising revenue.

So how much does TIKTOK pay for the music industry? You can refer to Goldman Sachs's report to make an estimate.

The latest version of "Music in the Air" reported in the week shows that in 2021, "emerging platforms" contributed 30%of all advertisements to support streaming revenue for recording music business, while TIKTOK only contributed to the "emerging platform" revenue 13%.

According to data from the International Records Industry Association (IFPI), it can be seen that all advertisements supporting streaming media revenue in 2021 is $ 4.6 billion. Then, the 30%output value contributed by the "emerging platform" was US $ 1.38 billion, of which 13%contributed from Tiktok, about $ 179 million.

Compared with TIKTOK's 179 million US dollars, YouTube claimed to pay more than $ 4 billion for a total of $ 4 billion for the musicians, songwriters, and copyright owners last June last year, and Spotify paid $ 5 billion to the music industry.

In the long run, the continuous expansion of TIKTOK is likely to squeeze the market share of YouTube, which means that the revenue paid by YouTube to the music industry will be reduced, and TIKTOK's buying costs fluctuations are unlikely to be great. In other words, the total revenue growth of the music industry from video channels will slow down or even negative growth.

Seeing that the cake is getting smaller and smaller, the music industry may not agree. So, is it possible to reorganize the distribution rules with platforms such as TIKTOK?

According to the source of Tim Ingham, TIKTOK did consider this cooperation method until one of the three records reached a huge "buy" license agreement with Tiktok, and other music companies had to follow the trend.

Regarding the industry's questioning and concerns, Tiktok's global music director Ole Obermann responded:

"From the beginning, we wanted to pay to the copyright party. We formed a team to do this.

The cooperation we reached by us and how to provide new, growing income flows for the industry in just a few years, and the strong marketing and publicity platform for all types of artists. We are happy to use Tiktok's successful new and old artists, establish contact with fans, and start their career.

This success and the power of the platform have been transformed into records and copyright contracts, the beginning of career, significant streaming media promotion, and Tiktok have a positive impact on the global list.

TIKTOK is the first unique service to adopt short videos. We are not streamlined platforms and do not provide subscribing models. We obtained the licenses by rolling. With the development of music interaction on the platform, our business model will also evolve. "

Ole Obermann pointed out that TIKTOK has become one of the most powerful music propaganda tools in the world, and it has also become a powerful tool for artists who want to sign a contract with the three major records, and directly affect the playback data on streaming media platforms such as Spotify. The consumption of platforms such as Apple Music provides motivation to pay the music industry through income into an indirect way. Emphasizing Tiktok is a promotion platform, not a consumer platform, which is also the core logic of the negotiations between the two parties to reach the "buying mode".

However, this set of rhetoric seems impeccable, but in reality, the byte beating has launched its own music streaming media services in two foreign and domestic markets: RESSO and soda music, extending their own territories from promotion to the consumer field.

Data show that as of November last year, since it was launched in 2020, the music stream media service RESSO, which has provided services in Brazil, India, and Indonesia, has more than 40 million monthly live users. According to the report of the research company, RESSO's download volume in the first 10 months of last year was 84.7 million times, which was higher than 36.5 million times in 2020 at the time of official launch, maintaining a high growth rate.

It is not difficult to predict that with the successful experience in emerging markets, the future RESSO will inevitably be launched in more markets such as the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. Based on Douyin's collaborative advantages, soda music will further grab share from Tencent Music Entertainment Group and Netease Cloud Music.

And the business portfolio of Douyin and soda music, Tiktok and RESSO, plus the layout of infrastructure levels from content production, music announcement to copyright agency distribution, etc., is undoubtedly the biggest variable that affects the music pattern in the next few years. Essence (Review of the old text)

However, Ole Obermann's response is also very flexible. He did not say to death. "With the development of music interaction on the platform, our business model will also evolve." However, in the next round of copyright negotiations with TIKTOK, the new cooperation model can be achieved. It is necessary to watch the three major records, Merlin and other industries.

Interestingly, if foreign counterparts know that the Chinese music market is promoting paid for online live music, it may be lamenting the pirated severely disaster -stricken areas, and now they are already in the tide of the times.

Just as the transformation from physical records to MP3 and streaming media, the rise of every emerging media may bring new production relations and profit models. In the game of streaming media, short videos and copyright owners, who will eventually occupy the dominance of the market and allow the bullet to fly for a while.

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