Yesterday morning (April 27), NetEase Cloud Music issued a "Statement on Unfair Competition prosecution of Tencent Music", announcing that judicial proceedings for Tencent Music's unfair competition behavior were formally initiated.
Accuse Tencent Music Entertainment Group (including QQ Music, Kuwo Music, Kugou Music, National K Song and other products) for infringing on our copyright through illegal pirated and unauthorized songs, batch impersonation of songs, follow-up plagiarism of our product innovation, evasion and even confrontation with supervision, etc., and constitute an act of unfair competition.
NetEase Cloud Music claimed that Tencent Music maliciously infringed copyright and was suspected of resisting rectification. Specific acts include QQ Music stealing our works through the "sub-regional playback" function, QQ Music stealing our works through the "Import External Song List" function, and Tencent Music batching impersonating and washing songs of unauthorized popular songs, maliciously intercepting the stream.
And said that Tencent Music has long copied the visual design, product functions, and innovative mechanisms of NetEase Cloud Music, and the specific behaviors include QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music plagiarized NetEase Cloud Music Vinyl Play Page Design, Kugou Music, QQ Music copied NetEase Cloud Music "Listen Together" function, And Kugou Music copied NetEase Cloud Music 'Yunbei Push Song' function settings and interface design.
NetEase Cloud Music added that over the years, Tencent Music Entertainment Group's unfair competition against NetEase Cloud Music and the entire online music industry has been long, wide-ranging, diverse, and tragic, and has shown an increasingly fierce trend in the past two years. If it were not for the intolerable intrusion of this long-term act of unfair competition, and the harm could not be retreated, we would not rush to publicize the pickled ugliness in this industry.
It also urged Tencent Music Entertainment Group to immediately rectify its products and businesses and stop all acts of unfair competition:
Immediately stop the infringing act, including but not limited to removing the infringing work, stopping the impersonation of the song, and rectifying the relevant infringing function;
Immediately stop unscrupulous acts of unfair competition and engage in healthy competition from the perspective of strengthening content creation and user experience;
Immediately check the violations of laws and regulations in each business, and recommend business ethics training for all employees, strengthen self-discipline awareness, and timely carry out moral correction.
At the same time, NetEase Cloud Music calls on practitioners in the industry to respect the achievements of others and focus more on the improvement of industry services, user experience and product innovation. At a time when the domestic online music industry is full of corpses and difficulties, it is not necessary to put effort into the evil road.
For the high-profile lawsuit of NetEase Cloud Music, Tencent responded.
On the afternoon of the same day, Chen Mo, head of public relations of Tencent's music brand, said in the circle of friends that he would not join the ranks of verbal fights, and ignoring the facts to touch porcelain would not help the development of the music industry. At the same time, it said that the relevant evidence has long been retained, and the lawsuits initiated have long been launched.
To summarize:
NetEase Cloud Music: You illegally pirated and secretly played, washed songs, plagiarized... Don't put kung fu on the evil path;
Tencent Music: Ignoring the facts and touching porcelain is helpless for development, we do not fight with each other, and the lawsuits that should be launched have already been launched.
The essence of the dispute between NetEase Cloud Music and Tencent Music is still in the online music copyright dispute, the current domestic online music industry has gradually formed a "one super one strong" market pattern, "one super" refers to Tencent music, and the other "strong" is NetEase Cloud Music.
In terms of music copyright resources, Tencent Music has an absolute advantage, bringing together the song copyrights of universal, Sony and Warner three major music companies, and also has the exclusive copyright of singers such as Jay Chou, if you want to hear these music, you must buy membership on the Tencent music platform.
For the majority of users, users suffer from "exclusive copyright" for a long time, in order to hear their favorite music, it is normal to install multiple music apps in mobile phones at the same time.
A major status quo of the NetEase cloud music platform is that the resources of the genuine music library are far less than tencent's music department, and the grayed music in the song list increases every day, and some users ridicule NetEase cloud music like this: In addition to the original song, there is everything.
In order to promote the benign development of the domestic online music market, the relevant state departments have also intervened many times.
For example, at the beginning of 2018, under the active coordination and promotion of the National Copyright Administration, Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music reached an online music copyright agreement, mutually authorizing 99% of all their musical works, and the remaining 1% was used for differentiated competition, while actively opening up the licensing of musical works to other online music platforms.
After Tencent Music signed exclusive copyright agreements with the world's three major record companies, Tencent also transferred the copyright to other platforms, such as NetEase, Alibaba and Xiaomi.
For another example, in July 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued an administrative penalty decision to Tencent Holdings Co., Ltd. in accordance with the law to order the cancellation of the exclusive copyright of online music, and imposed an administrative penalty of 500,000 yuan on Tencent for the transaction that was "reported but not reported".
Tencent and its affiliates were ordered to take measures to restore market competition by terminating exclusive music copyrights within 30 days, stopping payment methods of copyright fees such as high advance payments, and not requiring upstream copyright owners to give them conditions that were superior to competitors without legitimate reasons.
In response, Tencent responded that it would formulate rectification measures with affiliated companies such as Tencent Music within the specified time limit and ensure that rectification was in place.
At this point, the era of exclusive copyright of Tencent Music has finally ended.
But now it seems that not long after the exclusive copyright dispute between NetEase Cloud Music and Tencent Music was settled, a new wave of litigation over unfair competition began...
As a user, I only hope that the two will not quarrel and go directly together.