Text | Four nights
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Buying Beat for re-creation is already one of the more common ways of music creation in the European and American music markets. In recent years, with the increasing number of hip-hop music creators and audiences, some Beat trading platforms have emerged in China. How is this new business model developing in China? What difficulties have you encountered?
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essentials:
1. The emergence of the Beat trading platform is closely related to the Hip-Hop music boom, so Beat trading can be regarded as a "small circle" business.
2. The Beat trading market is still in its early stages of development, and the number of supply and demand sides needs to be expanded.
3. Short video music is a promising Beat sales export, and it is expected to help the Beat trading platform and the producers behind it out of the circle.
What is Beat? What is buying Beat?
For Hip-Hop veterans and musicians, this proper noun is no stranger.
In 2018, the rap variety show that came out of nowhere set off a hip-Hop music boom in China, and concepts such as Punchline, Freestyle, and Beat appeared in the public eye for the first time; after the infringement of "Wolf Disco", various industry media conducted in-depth analysis on what Beat is, how to trade, etc.; in the second season of "I Am a Singer-Songwriter", Che Che and Zhang Yixing also had a discussion on the topic of Beatmaker. The concept of Beat also has the opportunity to spread and popularize among music fans.
Beat is not a patent for Hip-Hop music, but it is more common in Hip-Hop creation, Rappers go to the platform to buy Beat, and adding words and melodies on this basis has been a very common creative process.
The development time of Hip-Hop music in China is not long, and the time from niche to public is even shorter. In recent years, domestic head Rappers have been favored by music festivals and music variety shows, and have begun to appear more frequently in the public eye. However, in the domestic market, most of the business models born around Hip-Hop are concentrated on the C-end, such as live performances and fashion clothing.
In addition to the prosperity of the music consumer side, at the production end, the "supporting facilities" born around Hip-Hop music are also constantly improving, as can be seen from the Beat trading platform that has emerged in recent years.
iQiyi evacuates,
BeatsHome was out of service
BeatsHome, the Beat trading platform launched in January this year, can be regarded as the first professional platform in China to provide Beats trading services.
According to Tianyan, Shanghai Shiyue Culture Communication Co., Ltd., which belongs to BeatsHome, che Che, vice president of iQIYI and general director of "China New Rap", serves as the executive director & manager of BeatsHome. The platform has completed an angel round of financing from iQIYI, and the shareholding structure chart shows that Beijing iQIYI Technology Co., Ltd. has a shareholding ratio of 95%.
Che Che previously revealed in an interview with the media that BeatsHome only took about half a year from the initial idea in May 2020 to the landing into a product in December, and then to the official launch in January 2021, and the entire initial team was incubated from within iQIYI. However, less than a year after its launch, BeatsHome announced its suspension in November.
In the early days of BeatsHome's launch, Angela participated as a member of the start-up team and was responsible for building a licensing system, users and producers to pull new, music content operations, "We had a very professional music operation at that time, very carefully listened to every Beat uploaded by the producer, and then through our subjective and objective standards formulated by the platform, to score and classify these Beats." ”
On the one hand, there is iQiyi's rap variety show as a drainage, on the other hand, the professional Beat trading platform is indeed an undeveloped open space in the domestic market, so BeatsHome is not a real cold start.
Beatmaker's occupancy, work uploads, and transaction volume are very good, and if it is done well, it can have a certain scale. Che Che has previously expressed the same view, BeatsHome attracted nearly 500 producers in a very short period of time, "colleagues around me greatly underestimated the number of producers in China." ”
Producers at BeatsHome can freely price their works, and the platform will also give a reference pricing. After the user completes the purchase, the platform will send the Beat file and the license contract to the user, and according to the pricing of the work, the profit ranges from 10%-20% from each successful transaction.
BeatsHome's business model is only a fraction, and the Beat pricing on the platform is not high. This means that only after the transaction volume reaches a large volume can it become a project with higher profitability and internal blood transfusion, but it is clear that iQiyi has no patience to wait for this day.
On December 1, iQiyi was exposed to lay off 20%-40% of employees, the proportion of layoffs in the departments that mainly spent money was more than 30%, and the proportion of layoffs in the content department was about 30%. In order to speed up the pace of profitability, focus on content, technology, and refined cost management, almost all departments such as iQIYI Research Institute and iQIYI Game Center have been cut, short video products will be merged with other products at any time, and many studios have been dissolved in situ.
Overall, iQiyi is still a streaming platform focused on long-form videos, while BeatsHome is just a business derived from its rap variety shows. The Beat deal is actually a very subdivided track in the field of music copyright, whether it is from the company's profit needs or the experience of the team leader, iQiyi actually does not have such genes.
After nearly a year of accumulation, BeatsHome has gathered a group of producers and creators, and has a certain popularity among the musician community, and it is a pity that it is now out of service, but the Beat trading market has not been shut down.
Domestic Beats trading track
Who else are there?
Recently, there is news that NetEase Cloud Music is testing a Beat trading platform, before that, NetEase Cloud Music announced in November this year that it has reached a strategic cooperation with BeatStars, the world's leading Beat trading platform.
In fact, as early as before the NetEase Cloud Music Internal Beta Beta trading platform, Hip-Hop creators have begun to spontaneously trade through the NetEase Cloud. Some Beatmaker will leave contact information in the introduction, users with Beat purchase needs will also contact the producer through the private message function, and some playlists collect the high-quality free Beat on the platform, and the producer will mark the rules of use in the lyrics.
However, whether it is using the public free Beat or contacting the producer through private message to buy, both parties to the transaction are connected through the platform, but the transaction does not occur on the platform and is not regulated by the platform. In this way, equity ownership, transaction security, convenience, etc. are actually not guaranteed, so NetEase Cloud launched the Beat trading function, which is not only a trend, but also helps users with needs to avoid risks to a certain extent.
NetEase Cloud Music's recently launched "Beat Trading Zone" claims to be a one-stop platform that integrates upload, display, purchase and exchange. From the perspective of beta beta, the uploaded part is still an invitation system; its home page has made a round of classified display of the existing Beat of the platform from the perspective of the latest recommendations, best-selling, selected, popular, genres, etc.; in the transaction part, producers can customize the type of sale and price, and users in need can click the shopping cart button on the song playback page to purchase; in addition, they can also join the "Beat Player Exchange Circle", which has 281 members as of press time.
It is worth mentioning that unlike beatsHome mentioned above, NetEase Cloud's "Beat Trading Zone" has a 0 percentage of each transaction, and 100% of the revenue belongs to Beatmaker, which shows that profit may not be the primary purpose of the launch of this feature. Moreover, the "Beat Trading Zone" is a new feature launched by NetEase Cloud Music in the site rather than an independent new platform, so attracting more high-quality creators in the hip-Hop field and active hip-hop community atmosphere within the platform may be a more important task.
In addition to NetEase Cloud Music, the Bubble Juice APP (formerly known as Eight Mile) is also one of the few platforms in China that provides Beat trading services. The platform is positioned as "social entertainment software for China's HIPOP cultural circle", which started earlier than NetEase Cloud, and the Hip-Hop community atmosphere is naturally stronger. There is not only a "BEATS Mall" entrance but also a "HIPHOP Forum" in the platform, in which daily recommendations, Beats list, hot song list, and my playlist assume the functions of part of the Beat streaming platform.
In addition, there are PAL Music "π Music" with the Hip-Hop music community as the main positioning, and STARdtbBeats under See Music, which are among the few platforms in China that provide Beat trading services.
Is Beat Trading a Good Business?
In essence, the Beat transaction is actually a category of to B music licensing, but unlike other content on the to B music licensing platform, Beat is a semi-finished music, and its user group is more segmented, which is a group of music creators who have a demand for Beat.
Therefore, compared with the to B music licensing platform, the professional Beat trading platform is more like a tool platform to assist musicians in their creation.
According to market research firm MIDIA, the number of DIY musicians grew by a third in 2020 alone. The root cause of this trend is that more and more fans have basic music creation capabilities with the help of creative tools. In turn, the birth of a large number of music creators has also accelerated the development of creative tool platforms.
Overseas, BeatStars can be regarded as one of the most famous Beat trading platforms, and the soundtrack used in Lil Nas X's global hit "Old Town Road" published in 2019 comes from the platform, and the Beat of "Wolf DISCO", which was previously caught in the "plagiarism" storm, was also purchased from the platform.
Taking this more mature Beat trading platform as an example, BeatStars' revenue channels are obviously more diversified.
In the seller's market, BeatStars provides producers with services ranging from $0-19.99 per month, and the difference in equity between different price points is mainly reflected in: the number of tracks allowed to be uploaded, the number of private messages received, the ability to obtain sales data, and the way to receive payments. In addition, Pro-level members can retain 100% of the post-sale revenue of the beat, while the free membership platform will draw 30% from it.
On the buyer's side, depending on the right to use, the price of a Beat is between $34.99 and $199.99, or the price can be negotiated. Licensing differences between pricing are mainly reflected in the number of distributions, the number of plays on music and video streaming platforms, the audio file types obtained, exclusive/non-exclusive, etc.
In contrast, the biggest difficulty of the domestic Beat trading platform is that the market size is not large enough, which actually depends on the volume of supply and demand.
From the supply side, the non-free Beat pricing in PAL Music is mostly between 1 yuan and hundreds of yuan, and the STARdtbBeats are slightly higher, almost all of which are above 500 yuan. Beat's pricing is related to the quality of the work, but also to the creative habits of the buyer (creator) and the affordable cost of music input.
From the buyer's point of view, most of the non-famous musicians actually do not invest too much in music creation, and the head musicians have almost no Beat purchase demand. This was a problem encountered when BeatsHome was launched, and it was also one of the pain points of the entire Beat trading market. In addition, how to attract a group of high-quality producers to settle in, and more high-quality Beat works on the shelves are also a key part of determining the success or failure of the platform.
There was "Old Town Road" as a success story, the song became known to more musicians along with the BeatStars platform after TikTok became popular, and Beat producer Youngkio not only received 50% of the copyright income of the lyrics, but also successfully signed a contract with Universal Music.
Therefore, for the domestic Beat trading platform, a successful explosion case can also bring more endorsement to this new business model. Moreover, according to industry sources, short video music has actually become a major export for domestic Beat purchases.
Whether there will be a short video hot song like "Old Town Road" in the future, with a producer and the Beat trading platform behind it, it is worth looking forward to.
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