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As regulators clamp down on unlicenced use of songs online, insiders wonder if the move can still salvage China's music industry, Yang Yang and Chen Nan report.
By July 31, online music delivery platforms must have all unauthorized musical works removed, and that recent notice from the National Copyright Administration is being welcomed by the music industry.
The new administrative regulation comes in the wake of disputes between the leading online music-delivery platforms, including Xiami.com and Kugou.com, who sued each other for infringing copyrights. In late May, Xiami.com sued Kugou.com for infringing the copyrights of 260 songs the former purchased from the Rock Records; one month later, Kugou.com sued Xiama.com for infringing its copyrights of 456 songs.
In April, FM apps Qingting FM and Lizhi FM were temporarily removed from Apple's App Store due to complaints of copyright infringement.
As a matter of fact, the supervision of online music-delivery platforms is the focus of the copyright authority for 2015, especially concerning infringement of copyrights and piracy.
"Undoubtedly, the new notice is a very good move by the government to regulate the online music delivery platforms, which will do good for the general music industry," says Guo Biao, China's chief representative for London-based International Federation of Phonographic Industry.
For ages, China's music industry has been suffering from piracy, whether it was in the age of tapes, CDs, or later the most flagrant - the Internet, which for many Chinese people means one can use anything online for free.
In many cases, even if a song is extremely popular online and one can hear it broadcast everywhere, such as in shopping malls, restaurants and barbershops, the songwriters may get very little for his or her creation.
China has the largest population of music listeners online, and is the country where musical works have been downloaded the most in the world.
By the end of 2014, there were more than 478 million online music users in China, and in the coming two to three years, the number will surpass 600 million. Now on average, Chinese download 200 million times every day, and the number for a year in the coming years will surpass 100 billion, according to official statistics.
The market value for China's paid-for online music is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), but now the revenues for China's paid-for online music only total about 400 million yuan.
Finding balance
When Taylor Swift released her latest album 1989 in October last year, many Chinese fans tried to find it online. One had to be quick, because the links for free download on Xiami.com failed very quickly.
Now one has to pay to listen to her on Music.163.com or Y.qq.com, an online music platform under Tencent. For example, on Music.163.com, 8 yuan ($1.25) can authorize one to listen to all of Swift's songs for one month, 45 yuan for six months and 88 yuan for a whole year.
It is a result of the negotiations between Universal Music China and the major online platforms. Most of the songs online in China are available for free listening, but the new regulation seems to try to balance the scale for music creators and providers.
Janis Chang, chief product officer of Taihe Entertainment Group, has been working in China's music industry for more than 20 years.
"In the past two decades, I've seen too many musicians quit the industry because of piracy or infringement of copyrights in various other forms," she says.
"I am so happy to see the government has attached so much importance to intellectual property rights. It is absolutely good news that will boost the morale," she says. "I know many musicians have been looking forward to the advent of such a day."
Before, the intermediate link on the closed loop of music delivery - creator to distribution channel to consumer - has been unregulated, which has severely affected the healthy development of the music industry, she says.
"We hope all kinds of online music delivery platforms will abide by the regulation," she says.
However, Wang Ju, administrative vice-president and secretary general of China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, says that although the new regulation is a good move for the music industry, there is still a long way to go if China wants to boost the industry.
Too little, too late?
"You can see, after the release of the notice, there is not much excited reaction in the music industry. On the contrary, the online music delivery companies kind of fidget because the government has started to regulate their business behavior," he says.
Wang says the lack of excitement is because the move may be too late: Music companies have declined, and most musicians have quit the industry since they cannot live on music.
"Even for authorized music, most of the income made out it has nothing to do with creators, which is disheartening for them," Wang says. "This is not only a problem in China, but in the whole world."
Wang is therefore pessimistic. "Very unfortunately, China has very weak music resources basis and lacks loyal audiences, so compared with many places in the world, the decline of our music industry is among the fastest," he says.
"The expectation of listening to free music has been formed, so even new generations will hold the same belief," he says.
There is some good news for the industry, however.
According to an investigation by Zhang Fengyan, associate professor at Communication University of China, although 74 percent of the interviewees were unwilling to pay a cent for music, when they were told that if they pay 10 yuan each month for music it will help to stimulate China's original music, boost the music industry and improve China's soft power, 62 percent said they were willing to pay for music.
"I think the new regulation is good news for China's music industry. I would like to pay for music because it's natural that music creators should get rewarded from their work," says Huang Xianpei, 29, an employee in the IT industry in Beijing, although currently he almost pays nothing for the music he listens to online.
Contact the writers through chennan@chinadaily.com.cn
