A few days ago, musician Wu Xiangfei "accused" his works of malicious appropriation by well-known copyright companies for many years through Weibo, and after defending his rights through legal means, he found that he wrote "The Road Has Always Been" for Eason Chan, with an annual income of only 271 yuan.
Wu Xiangfei said that at present, in terms of music platforms, Tencent has a positive attitude and is already discussing compensation, but other platforms such as NetEase Cloud Music have been ignoring the lawyer's letter sent by Wu Xiangfei.
In an interview with a Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter for more than a month, Wu Xiangfei said that even if recovering the arrears of royalties is not enough to pay lawyers' fees, it is worth it to let more people pay attention to copyright and learn from it.
The work is infringed by a well-known company and the royalties that have been fraudulently collected through the law
In March this year, when Wu Xiangfei was sorting out the catalogue of works, he accidentally found that more than a dozen works he had created were registered in the name of his company by Taiwan Universal Copyright, including 11 songs such as Eason Chan's "Road, Always Been There", "7", "Stinky Beauty", "Living Alone", "Hippie", Xiao Yaxuan's "Not Far", Yang Zongwei's "Who Will Change Me", Chen Kun's "Light Melancholy", etc. In recent years, Taiwan Universal Copyright has charged Tencent QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, etc. for the use of relevant music works, and as the author and copyright owner, Wu Xiangfei has never received any copyright royalties from Universal for several consecutive years.
After communicating with Universal Taiwan's music copyright, the other party insisted that it had signed a relevant contract with Wu Xiangfei, but "the contract was lost", but the next day, Universal stated to the Taiwan copyright management organization that Universal did not enjoy the management rights of these works. Later, Universal expressed to Wu Xiangfei that he was willing to refund the part of the money they had taken over the years. Wu Xiangfei immediately refused, he believed that the nature of this matter was no longer as simple as returning money.
After that, Wu Xiangfei decided to use legal means to defend his rights. On June 1, he entrusted a lawyer to deliver the lawyer's letter to NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou, Kuwo, and QQ Music. Tencent quickly responded, and the Copyright Department quickly contacted Wu Xiangfei, saying that it had received a notification from Universal that Universal would no longer represent Wu Xiangfei's works. Wu Xiangfei politely replied to Tencent: I did not authorize Universal to represent me for these songs for 13 years, so there is no contract expiration. I hope you will run the royalties that have been paid to Universal all these years, which belong to me, and these money need to be paid to me. Universal is not qualified to authorize and collect money on my behalf. You paid the wrong person for the royalties before.
A few days later, Tencent sent royalty data about the 12 songs (the money Tencent paid to Universal but actually belonged to Wu Xiangfei), and as soon as the data was obtained, Wu Xiangfei said that he had been "hacked" by Universal.
Wu Xiangfei said: "According to common sense, the royalties paid by copyright companies to authors are the sum of the payments paid by many units, and the amount should be the highest. Interestingly, during the same time period, the tencent family paid me a higher royalty than the total amount of royalties that Universal was prepared to pay me. ”
Through legal means, Wu Xiangfei will eventually recover the money that the user should have paid to the copyright owner, but was "impersonated" by Universal.
"The funny thing is that Universal has passed a hand, and the money is still in my hands, and there is very little." Look at the data that Tencent ran out, and then look at the money that Universal is ready to pay me, the amount is so low that it is cute and ridiculous. ”
Write a song for Eason Chan An annual income of only 271 yuan
"The Road Has Always Been" is the first title song in Eason Chan's album "Don't Want to Let Go" released on June 30, 2008, with high popularity and popularity, how much can Wu Xiangfei charge as an author?
According to the report presented to Wu Xiangfei by Universal in April, the song "The Road Has Always Been There", the song "The Road Has Always Been", universal paid Wu Xiangfei the song use fee of 271 yuan per year, an average of 22.58 yuan per month.
The royalties that Universal is prepared to pay to Wu Xiangfei are: NT$82,178 for 5 years, converted at the exchange rate on June 10, at RMB18,974. And this little more than 10,000 yuan is actually wu Xiangfei's 14-24 works for 5 years of use. The singers involved include: Eason Chan, Yang Zongwei, Xiao Yaxuan, Zhong Hanliang, Xu Zhi'an, Chen Kun...
It was this meager royalty that Universal had not paid for years and had been in his pocket. It was not until the "East Window Incident" that Universal had to take it out.
Over the years, the "Road Has Always Been" concert is in use, various variety shows are in use, various players are in use, and various commercial occasions are used, and the author only receives 271 yuan a year.
According to the Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter, take Eason Chan's "Stinky Beauty" as an example, if the TV station variety show is used, the normal quotation, the use fee of this song is 8-10 million yuan (after tax).
In 2018, shanghai can star produced the "China New Song" program, the contestants covered the "stinky beauty", which is wu Xiangfei's work, can star did not verify the copyright of the song, the royalties paid to universal. Universal still illegally authorized Brite Star to use it without songwriting agency rights.
Only one song, only this royalty, caused Wu Xiangfei tens of thousands of yuan (lyrics usage fee) loss. In the royalty statements provided by Universal in April this year, we also did not see any royalties paid by Canstar regarding the use of "Stinky Beauty".
According to industry insiders, according to the convention, the distribution of royalties is roughly as follows:
The copyright company manages the songwriter's work on behalf of the songwriter, authorizes and collects royalties from the user, and after receiving the money, the copyright company collects a commission in a certain proportion. Typically, copyright companies provide royalty reports to songwriters every six months and pay royalties to songwriters based on the reports. The report shows how many users have paid royalties to the copyright company, and how much each payment has been paid.
After deducting the agency fee, the copyright company pays the remaining royalties to the songwriter. If: 10 units use "The Road Has Always Been There", a total of 200,000 royalties are paid, the copyright company receives 200,000, deducting the management fee, if the agreed management fee is 15%, then 15% of the 200,000 is 30,000, and the payment to the songwriter is 170,000.
Since users do not have contact with songwriters when they pay, how many users have paid and how much have they paid? The songwriter is unknown and can only be known through the later reports provided by the copyright company. If the user pays 50,000 yuan to the copyright company, but the copyright company does not reflect the 50,000 yuan in the royalty report when it provides the songwriter with the report, then the author will not know that there is this income, and of course, there will be no royalty. This money may be appropriated by the copyright company.
Connivance is a greater harm to the author, and to accompany the infringement to the end
Did Universal impersonate a songwriter and only infringe on Wu Xiangfei's rights? Not.
According to Wu Xiangfei, a few years ago, a user found the musician Zhang Yadong to negotiate the purchase of copyright, and then the other party suddenly lost news. Soon after, the other party used Zhang Yadong's work, but did not inform Zhang Yadong. The other party's reply was: "Universal authorized us to use, and the money was given to Universal." At that time, the rights to the work were in the hands of Zhang Yadong, but Universal privately authorized others to use and collect money. Later, Zhang Yadong found Universal, who admitted that he had no rights and apologized for losing money, and Zhang Yadong did not pursue it again.
Wu Xiangfei believes that Zhang Yadong is a large number of adults and has not continued to pursue. But he believes that to forgive the wicked is to condone, to do greater harm to the industry and the hard-working songwriters.
At present, Tencent has clearly replied to Wu Xiangfei and has begun to collect royalties from Universal. Wu Xiangfei also made clear his attitude: Universal authorized and charged Tencent arbitrarily without the right to compose songs, which was Universal's deception of Tencent and had nothing to do with others.
What puzzled Wu Xiangfei was that NetEase Cloud Music, which has always claimed to be the most affectionate, has not made any statement or made up for its mistakes since receiving the lawyer's letter, after knowing that there is infringement.
"I have written songs for more than twenty years, and I have come into contact with many copyright companies, with rules and regulations. For companies that deceive songwriters, I will accompany them to the end. ”
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Shou Penghuan
Editor/Ying Qiao