Author | Vernica
Editor| Li Chunhui
Nominally, the era of exclusive music copyright has ended for 3 months, although the body feeling as an ordinary user is not obvious. Recently, Modern Sky has appeared again in NetEase Cloud Music, which is a substantial progress worthy of attention.
As the "top spot" of China's original music, Modern Sky was exclusively listed on Tencent Music in 2018. In October this year, NetEase Cloud Music released a photo entitled "Modern Sky Returns to Cloud Village, Love Band Shines Forever!" through its Cloud Village account! The playlist of songs foreshadows the return of modern skies.
Since the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a penalty order on July 24 requiring companies to revoke exclusive copyrights, platforms have removed the "exclusive" logo of music content, but copyright opening has not rapidly made substantial progress. Previously, some media reported that NetEase threw an olive branch of non-exclusive copyright cooperation to more than a dozen major record companies, but did not get a positive response.
The dilemma of copyright either-or remains. Some copyright owners, believing that Tencent Music's contract has not yet been terminated, have declined to negotiate cooperation. There are also some copyright owners who are still waiting to see the implementation of anti-monopoly, especially some overseas copyright parties, who are still unwilling to give up the high income of the previous "exclusive copyright".
It seems that there is a long way to go to achieve the freedom of listening to songs on all platforms. If one day, the copyright of the major head record companies unlocks the whole platform, it will mark the real end of the exclusive copyright era. However, the return of Modern Sky is ultimately a positive signal of a market shift. The transformation from spelling copyright to spelling content and fighting operation is full of thorns that are difficult to return, and it is also full of opportunities to change the world. It also makes people can't help but imagine that Modern Sky, as the first representative of China's original music to test the waters, will have the opportunity to challenge the big record companies in the future when enjoying the equal rights of the music distribution market?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > Generation Z, the biggest hope for original music? </h1>
In the years of drastic changes in music copyright, the mainstream audience of the Chinese music market is also quietly changing. According to QuestMobile, Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2009) already has 320 million active users in 2020. The consumption potential brought about by the circle culture continues to grow, subtly affecting the development of various consumption fields. Accurate to the pulse of Generation Z is equivalent to the direction of the future market.
On the other hand, we have also seen that many platforms such as NetEase Cloud and Tencent Music Research Institute have all given consistent data conclusions: Generation Z has become the main force in creation and listening. The data shows that NetEase Cloud Music's post-95s and post-00s musicians account for more than 70%. About 90% of NetEase Cloud Music's active users are post-90s and post-00s.
The music market is moving towards "Generation Z", which clearly shows the obvious characteristics of young audiences, differentiated works and diversification. In 2020, netease musicians' original songs were played more than 300 billion times. On the new songs and hot song lists of various music platforms, the "strangers" in the eyes of hard candy jun have become the mainstream.
Like our impression of the minority indie rock band Deca joins 'Bathroom', the post-shake band Fairchild's "Goodbye, Thank You for Your Fish", the indie pop band Zoo Nail Household's "Big Big Elephant", the electronic Anzol's "Lost In Yourt Maze", the rap PO8 "Poet Says Dreams" and so on, it has received thousands or even tens of thousands of song reviews on NetEase Cloud Music.
Modern Sky founder Shen Lihui also responded to this change in an interview. In the past, the streets were all "Rats Love Rice" and Phoenix Legends, but suddenly one day, these songs suddenly became "Nanshan South", "I Eat Fried Chicken in People's Square", "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky", the so-called independent original music and mainstream music Wall has gradually been broken.
In the era of the traditional recording industry, due to the limited communication channels, "original music" is only a supporting role in the market, and mainstream music belongs to large record companies with more distribution power. In the current Internet era, the concept of "original music" has undergone a qualitative change, which is more in line with the preferences of Generation Z. According to the observation point of view of the new music industry, original music now mainly contains three characteristics: originality, locality and popularization. There is no need to dwell on originality, local emphasis is rooted in the Chinese mainland market, and civilian emphasis is placed on non-large record companies.
In this process, compared with the copyright tycoon who reaps the benefits of the fisherman, the leader of independent original music such as Modern Sky has embodied a strong vitality and vitality. Founded in 1997, Modern Sky grew up in the Internet era and followed the growth trajectory of the post-90s and post-00s. From the establishment of independent music labels to the successful operation of the iconic Strawberry Music Festival and livehouse brand Modernsky Lab. Even during the severe blow of the epidemic, he even survived and changed, embraced the phenomenon of "cloud bungee" created by the Internet, and cooperated with the Internet platform to conduct a number of live broadcasts of online music festivals "House Strawberry" and "Bedroom POGO".
Modern Sky and the copyright tycoon seem to be staging a story of a tortoise and rabbit race.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="36" > new round of spelling content, how to play? </h1>
What has changed the times is not only the story of Modern Sky catching up with big record companies, but also the new way of competition on music platforms - how to make "Modern Sky" play the greatest value in the case of equal "Modern Sky".
Ending nearly a decade of "buying, buying, buying" copyright burning war, in the new game of play, strong financial strength is not the absolute advantage of the platform, forcing the platform to start thinking about how to do a good job in "copyright value development".
In fact, from netease musicians er dog son saddoggy "Heaven Flying", Ah Yan "Love 105 ° C You" and other popular hit songs, are telling us a truth: in the past two years, a large number of original songs that have been "sleeping" in the music library for many years are being awakened.
In the golden rule of the music market, the reason why several major record companies that accounted for 10% of the music library were able to take away more than 60% of the revenue was because the 10% of the music library played the largest listening value and the largest audience. But now, the music market is gradually subverting the "rule of two eight", and the long tail effect of waist and tail music is becoming more and more obvious, and even more and more explosive models appear in the long tail of music.
In the past, there seemed to be only one paradigm of popular music, and everyone listened to only one type of pop song together. Now, there are many groups of people who like a lot of music, electronic music, rap, rock, folk songs in their own circles, each shining.
The music platform's deep cultivation of different users and the diversified exploitation of content have become a crucial step in winning or losing in the next competitive game. For example, NetEase Cloud Music put forward the concept of operation of community-based products, made the first attempt from simple copyright acquisition to diversified planning, invited users to refill words according to classic works, or asked composer creators to write songs with interesting user music reviews. Among them, "Masquerade" has triggered a second wave of users' creation on various platforms, and just the topic of "inviting you to the Masquerade Dance Party to dance" has accumulated more than 1.8 billion plays.
NetEase Cloud Music and B Station have a lot in common, and the ecology of UGC's secondary creation is extremely active. NetEase Cloud Music has previously said that the young audience of the Z generation is no longer just a simple "audience", but a person with a strong desire to interact and create.
Compared with other Internet industries, one of the infrastructures that China's online music has long lacked is an objectively shared data platform, which is a key factor in tripping up the progress of music distribution. In the film industry, with the rise of online ticket purchase platforms represented by Maoyan and Taobao tickets, the fate of film distribution has gradually been revolutionized, a transparent database platform has been established, and the distribution team is no longer needed to be stationed in the local network model, which consumes manpower and material resources to dock theaters across the country.
For a long time, in order to get the platform data, the music copyright owner needs to communicate with the various departments of the platform, the progress is slow and troublesome, and even the data obtained is "selective". The copyright real-time data system proposed by NetEase Cloud Music recently gives the music distribution copyright market a possibility of digital imagination, and it is said that 170 copyright parties have settled in. If its speed, transparency, and automation can really be fulfilled, digital music distribution has finally taken a key step forward.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="37" > whose opportunities? </h1>
"Our popular art must have deep roots, and without this cultural foundation, it is a fluttering cloud, a flowing wind." Song Guanlin, vice president of the China Performance Industry Association, said in 2019, giving the current original music breakthrough a finger north.
The wealth code of the big overseas record companies sitting on the golden age of Hong Kong and Taiwan pop music rights monetization should have long been in the past. In recent years, in addition to the few "Tianwang Tianhou" we are familiar with, in addition to Jay Chou, Jolin Tsai, and Lin Junjie, there are few other outputs, even if they sing, they will not be the same year. Sun Yanzi released a new song "Balance" this year, and was even labeled as a "cold singer" by post-00 netizens. While embarrassing and uneven to the post-80s generation, it actually reflects from the side that the copyright dividend of large record companies will not always exist.
On the other hand, songs such as "We Are Not The Same", "Learn to Cat Call", and "Decent" have successively exploded from China to overseas. At Spotify, Chen Xuening's "Your Tavern Closed for Me" and "Green" actually have tens of millions of views.
Obviously, with the passage of time, the iteration of users, the head effect of the copyright in the hands of large record companies is significantly reduced. And because several big records have gradually lost their production functions in the past, they no longer spend time making music in the mainland as they did in the Past in the Hong Kong and Taiwan music scenes, and they have directly lost the chips in the future game.
Original music that is deeply rooted in local culture should have been seen, excavated, and amplified long ago, rather than just a flash in the pan and a specific circle of talk. Ten years ago, you must have thought that music labels like Modern Sky were niche, but now, who can say that Modern Sky is niche? Some people say that "Summer of the Band" has become popular with artists in modern sky, but in fact, it is the choice of young audiences, bringing traffic to "Summer of bands". The diverse and original value of "Modern Sky" is being highlighted.
Whether you can use the "modern sky" to create multiple "Summer of the Band" is the next thing that the music platform should think about. From the current pattern, ByteDance, which has been hesitant in the music section, is ready to launch the music app "Feile" in the second half of the year. The new opportunities that Byte and NetEase Cloud Music can challenge Tencent Music are: they are all "pushing people" and "pushing songs"
The core algorithm establishes the advantages of the platform, whether it is daily recommendation, guess what you like, etc., which can help improve the distribution efficiency of copyright owners and content producers, and realize the dual effect of user active search and passive reception.
Waiting for the day when copyright opens is also the time when various platforms stand on the same starting line. In the end, who to choose to stay and listen to the song, the victory or defeat is still undecided.