Playing the copyright card can't save long videos

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Wen 丨 brocade

If you use one word to describe the mentality of the long video head platform "Aiyouteng" at this moment, the four words of "middle-aged anxiety" may be the best footnote.

First of all, the data shows that the three platforms have burned more than 100 billion yuan in the past decade, but so far there is still no profit expectation.

Secondly, even if it is to burn money, at least in the past, several parent video platforms can still use the rapid growth of paying users and the huge potential of the Chinese market as the main support point of their investment logic - although the cash flow is not satisfied, at least the company is still growing at a high speed, and there is still a lot of space;

However, with the launch of iQiyi's large-scale layoffs at the end of last year, a clear and pessimistic signal has been called: even from the perspective of insiders, the mid-life crisis of long video platforms is intensifying, and the investment logic of burning money to buy users in exchange for growth is difficult to support.

People to middle-aged heroes are short of breath, how can long videos get out of the middle-aged dilemma?

01, the transfer of contradictions

That's the problem, but it seems that long-form video platforms don't think the problem of user churn is their own.

Take the popular movie "Changjin Lake" released on National Day last year as an example: since New Year's Day, it has premiered simultaneously on the three major long video platforms of Youku, Tencent and iQiyi; and the three long video platforms have almost simultaneously launched rights protection against short video platforms, believing that the 30-minute cut of the second creation is suspected of infringing the copyright of the long video platform.

Soon, the relevant short video platform responded that after verification, the relevant content was actually part of the official publicity cooperation between the producer of "Changjin Lake" Bona Pictures and the short video platform, all of which were authorized, the total length of the relevant video was less than 6 minutes, the material came from the film promotional film and related historical materials, and the report said that there was a "30-minute cut strip" that was obviously untrue.

In addition, in the process of the popular broadcast of "Sweeping Black Storm", the situation is basically similar - the same is the second creation of the content of the short video platform cooperating to publicize the account, which was sent to court by the long video platform on the grounds of infringement.

In response to the short video platform's indiscriminate public opinion condemnation and legal proceedings, the anxiety of the long video platform can be seen:

In the eyes of long-term video platforms, the important reason for the long-term losses, recessions and layoffs of several major platforms is not that their product and service models cannot meet the needs of users, but because of the existence of short video platforms.

02. Lips and swords

At the 4th Hongqiao International Economic Forum held in November 2021, Gong Yu, founder of iQIYI, publicly stated that the dismantling, secondary creation and interpretation of short video platforms are all new forms of piracy.

In his opinion, these elements constitute the main reason why long video platforms are struggling:

First of all, a large number of secondary creations and content traffic competitions on short video platforms have squeezed the market for long video platforms. On the one hand, users prefer to watch the content after the second creation, on the other hand, many creators also bring their own traffic, which in itself has caused a fierce diversion of long video platforms.

Secondly, this kind of secondary creation itself also forms a kind of fast food consumption: compared with dozens of episodes of TV series and secondary creations that can understand the content synopsis in a few minutes, the former consumes too much patience of consumers, thus making it difficult for long-form video producers to compete with it.

For example, in a comedy talk show, once the main baggage and memes are thrown out in the short video strip, no one will ever want to watch the talk show again. This kind of content satisfies people's voyeurism and some social needs of the series, and also has a conversation with friends.

Finally, the most fatal thing is that for movies, there is a window period for hits, some works have passed the window period, and secondary creations have little impact on it. The long video is a long video platform with the variety show as the foothold, and the outflow of some fragments of the variety show is a fatal blow to the long video platform.

The anxiety of long video platforms can be described as coming from:

The above evaluations from long video platforms just prove that short video platforms, whether products and services, have been well received by users and creators, thus forming a network effect of more users to use;

The long-term long-term video platform based on IP, these two years can be described as unfavorable: from the rectification of actors' income, the film and television industry is seriously depressed by the impact of the big environment. The two sides have their strengths and weaknesses, and the move to divert pressure is understandable.

03, the emperor's new clothes

Long video platform step by step, really thanks to short video? From the common sense of the relationship between internal and external factors, we can foresee that the underlying logic of facts does not stop there.

First of all, the loss of the long video platform is not generated today, and it is not a problem after the emergence of the short video platform, the three major long video platforms have almost burned money at huge losses from the first day; the loss exacerbated by the macro environment is only a footnote in this era.

Secondly, in the eyes of long-form video platforms, Chinese consumers' limited willingness to pay for content restricts the profitability of the platform; in fact, compared with Netflix and YouTube, in addition to charging membership fees, domestic bundled fees for various names are also charged, such as preemptive viewing and other content; under comprehensive consideration, the rates have been almost equal to overseas.

More importantly, overseas long video platforms often face consumers with stronger payment capabilities, a global range of users, and long video content providers are more willing to cooperate with them; for Chinese long video platforms, the content is not attractive enough and users are unwilling to pay high prices, forming a two-sided side of the problem, and the resulting network effect is greatly narrowed.

Therefore, for long video platforms, this constitutes a negative loop:

If you want to avoid burning money, you need to attract members to pay as soon as possible; and if you want to attract users to pay quickly, the best way is to burn money to smash IP and traffic stars;

After paying the sky-high price of traffic stars, the content essence is often difficult to support, and the strange circle of traffic stars = box office poison is formed;

Once the traffic star fades, the stickiness disappears, and in exchange for a higher box office, you need to continue to pay for super traffic, resulting in greater losses. The tragic scene of drinking and quenching thirst can be seen here.

Not only that, many long video platforms are also trying to build a monopoly solidification logic such as slots, exclusives and star ratings, through the establishment of industry standards, to consolidate the industry volume, resulting in a large number of episodes of water injection and other strange phenomena, often dozens of episodes of TV series and long ads that need to be removed by payment, so that the user's experience is getting worse and worse, further so that the entire industry began to fall into a recession cycle.

The emergence of short video platforms has unveiled the emperor's new clothes: after the emergence of many short video platforms, new traffic logic, new fan groups and new star publicity channels have constituted the subversion of old things by innovative models.

Whether it's the preferences of users, the loyalty of content creators, or even the new generation model of celebrity fan groups, it further exacerbates the middle-aged anxiety of long-form video platforms: new models have abandoned them, and they are still trapped in old broken dreams.

04. Double standard suspect

What is more interesting is that many long-form video platforms choose the underlying logic of wanton legal warfare and public opinion warfare at this moment, is there a suspicion of double standards?

First of all, in the early days, as a platform party that needs to reserve copyright, the long-term public opinion of the long video platform has always been against excessive copyright protection, hoping to expand the scope of use of long video copyright that has been purchased;

However, after the confrontation with the traffic and distribution logic of short video platforms, these long video platforms began to emphasize copyright protection, believing that secondary creation hurts copyright.

Secondly, long video platforms are keen to use the power of capital to hype the super IP that has arrived, but they have also denounced the creation of short video platform IP, hoping to kill these emerging content creation ecosystems in the cradle.

Behind this kind of water-stirring operation model, what is clearly visible is the narrowness of capital power, which wants to maintain the interest pattern that has been proven to fail, and hopes to curb the development of the short video industry.

Similar anxieties, we have seen in carriage manufacturers when cars first appeared; candle makers also carried out legal and public opinion rebuttals when light bulbs first appeared.

But in the end, these counterattacks were fruitless, and under the impact of the new model, the old monopoly pattern all failed without exception.

God's is to God, Caesar's is Caesar's. Wherever copyright issues are concerned, there will be judicial clarification; but the copyright disputes that can be clarified are by no means the elixir of long videos to return the soul: when the mouth is talking about copyright protection, and all we think about is business, we are very clear that these challenges and public opinion at present are more unnecessary resistance from the beneficiaries of the old pattern.

In an interview with long-form video defenders, long-form video platform defenders inadvertently confided their true thoughts: "We have not yet proposed authorization, because the time has not yet come." Because the short video platform has not shown the determination to govern, now that the authorization is discussed, we simply cannot control the future direction, so we must first see the platform's initiatives in governance and achievements. ”

The above interview content just makes the underlying logic of the whole farce very clear: some platforms are reluctant to negotiate with short video platforms on platform authorization, and more hope to control the content provision of short video platforms at the rule level in the name of copyright.

From the perspective of investors, we prefer to see these long video platforms, rather than blaming, it is better to focus on providing better content to consumers, but also better service creators, to meet the challenges of new things, often to the blade inward, dare to face the old model.

For the long video platform whose stock price has fallen endlessly, which parent video platform can be the first to come out, start self-revolution, and block the unnecessary verbal dispute, which is the key to overcoming this mid-life crisis.