"At some point, [long videos and short videos] develop into each other to a certain stage, and they will definitely merge and shake hands somewhere."
As Jia Zhangke predicted in the dialogue with short video creators, on March 17, 2022, long and short videos ushered in a historic handshake moment - Douyin took the lead in announcing cooperation with Sohu and obtained the relevant authorization for the secondary creation of all self-made film and television works of Sohu. In the future, users of the Douyin platform can create these works for the second time.
This is also the first time that the long and short video platform has reached a "consensus" on the secondary creation of film and television works.
All along, in the case of continuous copyright disputes on long and short video platforms and the strictest new regulations for short videos, Douyin has opened up another possibility by actively "cooperating" - the end point of long and short video disputes is not the "zero-sum game" between you and me, but the "positive sum game" of mutual achievement.
"Games and Controversies"
Long and short videos have been in contention for years. At the 2021 Online Audiovisual Conference, the executives of the three parent video platforms of "Aiyouteng" collectively "crusaded" short videos, completely making the contradictions between long and short videos public.
The intensification of the contradiction stems from the "trade-off" of the two markets. According to the "2021 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", the scale of the pan-network audiovisual industry will exceed 600 billion yuan in 2020 - the market size in the short video field is the largest, exceeding 205.1 billion yuan, an increase of 57.5% year-on-year; the comprehensive video market represented by Aiyouteng is more than 119 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3% year-on-year.
"From an industrial point of view, the root cause of the disputes between the two sides lies in the conflict of interest between the 'short video' emerging industry and the 'long video' traditional industry." According to Xu Chunming, a professor at the Shanghai International Intellectual Property Institute of Tongji University, the short video industry is short and fast, can spread quickly, and forms an Internet celebrity economy; the long video industry has a large investment and a long cycle.
More people disagree. They believe that the rise of short video is more about eating the dividends of the mobile Internet - fragmented time such as users queuing up and waiting for cars, rather than grabbing the market from long videos. "Before the rise of short video, the long-term loss of long video platforms already existed" "At the same time as the rise of short video, long video, although it loses money, is also growing"...
The back of the game is the value of secondary creation that cannot be ignored. "Hello, Li Huanying" benefited from the compilation of wonderful moments and quickly went out of the circle, and some creators refined and enlarged the essence of the film and television because of the tribute to "Horror Cruise", so that more people chased the whole drama because they watched a clip. In addition to the promotion and drainage of film and television works, it can be seen that many film and television innovations are "generating electricity for love", and the works present a unique narrative style and cultural attributes.
It can be seen that the film and television second creation is not naturally on the opposite side of the original film. In fact, long video platforms have always attached great importance to erchuang. As early as before the rise of B station, the debut of up masters was mostly completed on Youku, where they gathered to share and communicate and enjoy the joy of being appreciated.
Even, to some extent, "Aiyouteng" has long been not stingy in showing its covetousness in the short video business, and has supported its own "Jitter Fast B" by modifying or creating a new APP. Many film and television UP owners were invited to settle in, "but gave up the update due to poor traffic".
Even now, many film and television works purchased exclusively by Aiyouteng will be publicized by the filmmakers with the help of short video platforms, or the account matrix will be established on Douyin to publish wonderful CUT. Last year's hit "Sweeping Black Storm", the works of UP masters even became the window for the audience to open the show. As a film and television producer perceives, this is the most basic supply and demand relationship, "whether it is to attract the attention of the audience or complain, this is already a very important marketing tool."
"The development of the short video industry depends on the support of the long video industry, and the development of the long video industry also needs the promotion of the short video industry", according to Xu Chunming, the length and shortness can be symbiotic, and the length and shortness can also be complementary.
"It is necessary to emphasize copyright protection and encourage innovation and creation", from this point of view, in the copyright dispute of long and short videos, while accusing infringement, it is more necessary to point out a "good road" to avoid infringement, rather than a "sheep's intestine path" full of thorns.
"Authorize before use"
"I'm not against short videos, but I'm against short videos infringing." Liu Jiacheng, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice president of the China Television Drama Association, once said in an interview that it is the minimum rule to authorize and then use.
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2022, Liu Jiacheng also submitted the "Proposal on Increasing the Punishment of Short Video Infringement and Innovating the Authorization Mechanism". His clear attitude does not mean that it is forbidden to create short videos twice, but that under the basic principle of "first authorize and then use", all parties should negotiate a short video secondary creation authorization mechanism.
After all, in addition to the expression of personal creativity and opinions, the secondary creation of UP masters effectively supplements the absence of some key parts of the film and television ecology, making the entire cultural creation market more rich and diverse. Many netizens said: "Compared with the lengthy plot in the TV series, some UP owners know very well what we want to see, and their re-creation content is concise and necessary for the next meal." ”
Indeed, as Xu Chunming said, the purpose of copyright protection is to prosper the creation and dissemination of works, and it is by no means to make the use of works taboo. However, how to resolve the copyright disputes that are raging in between?
"Authorize first and use later" can be said to give a good direction. There is advocacy before, and practice after that. On March 17, Douyin obtained the relevant authorization of all self-made content creations of Sohu, and tried copyright cooperation on long and short video platforms for the first time, providing a new solution to solve the copyright problem.
Judging from Douyin's statement, through cooperation, it will obtain the relevant authorization for the secondary creation of all self-made film and television works of Sohu, including "Forensic Qin Ming", "Hurry That Year", "Confession in backlight" and so on. The Douyin platform and users can re-edit, arrange or adapt these film and television works. In the future, the two sides will continue to carry out cooperation in creative marketing or video collection in the promotion of new dramas.
According to Xu Chunming's understanding, obtaining the relevant authorization for the secondary creation of all self-made film and television works of Sohu can be considered as a "package license" model.
"It not only fully respects the copyright of long video rights holders, ensures their licensing fee benefits and platform promotion and publicity, but also reasonably reduces the transaction costs and infringement risks of short video producers and disseminators and platforms, and realizes the co-governance and win-win situation of giving full play to the value of long videos and the healthy development of the short video industry, so as to achieve an effective balance between rights protection and industrial development," he further explained.
How to grasp the scale of "reasonable use", how to change market participants from "grabbing the cake" to "making cake" and "sharing the cake", how to establish a scientific and reasonable interest distribution mechanism between all parties, Douyin and Sohu provide an "ice-breaking" sample for long and short video copyright cooperation, and also open a window of opportunity for more cooperation in long and short videos in the future.
From "grab the cake" to "divide the cake"
While one party gains benefits, it inevitably means that the other party suffers losses, and the benefits of both parties add up to 0, and the old copyright disputes between long and short videos can be said to be a perfect interpretation of the zero-sum game relationship. However, practice has proved that the length and shortness can be symbiotic, and the length can also be complementary.
Because of the demonstration of copyright cooperation between Douyin and Sohu, the dilemma of the original zero-sum game is disintegrating, and the copyright market has also begun to move from a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game, so that the interests of each game party can be increased, rather than the gains of one party bringing losses to the other side.
"The copyright cooperation of long and short video platforms is of great practical significance to meet the growing demand of consumers for film and television audio works, and also helps long and short video platforms to become bigger and stronger, especially to reverse the phenomenon of drawing a solid and fighting alone between enterprise platforms in the past."
For Liu Junhai, director of the Institute of Commercial Law of Chinese Min University, most people agree that erchuang can make the work rejuvenate, drain the original work, enhance popularity or help demining, whether it is good for short video platforms or long video platforms, copyright cooperation is a win-win situation between Douyin and Sohu, and it is also a win-win situation between the platform and creators and viewers.
For short video platforms and their creators, because of the fear of infringement risks, their creations are like walking on thin ice, and the erchuang authorization allows them to publish their works legally and compliantly, eliminating worries.
Although the Copyright Law stipulates that "in order to introduce and comment on a certain work or explain a certain issue, appropriate quotations from others' published works in the work may not be paid without the permission of the copyright owner", many film and television drama editing bloggers have feedback that the standard of "appropriate citation" is too difficult to grasp, and if you are not careful, you will break the law because you cross the line, which is really not worth the loss.
And "in the Internet age, everyone is an author, everyone is a user, if you all follow a one-to-one accurate authorization is unlikely", to further understand the view of Zhang Ping, executive vice dean of the School of Intellectual Property of Peking University, the most reassuring thing for UP is to obtain authorization in advance.
For long video platforms, they can still be attacked and retreated with "blockbusters in hand" - under cooperation, they can not only avoid the short video platform from becoming the bidding opponent of the entire film copyright, but also allow the editing within 5 minutes to play the greatest role, inspiring users to go to long video websites to watch the follow-up. After all, short video platforms with huge traffic cannot be underestimated for the promotion of film and television content. According to the 49th Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network, as of December 2021, the number of mainland Internet users exceeded 1 billion, and the number of short video users reached 934 million.
"I hope to promote cooperation with more copyright holders, especially long-form video platforms with many exclusive copyright resources, to provide better copyright solutions for creators and the industry." Nowadays, Douyin has taken the lead in throwing out the "olive branch".