China-Singapore Jingwei Client, February 6th (Zhao Jiaran and Fu Yumei) On February 4th, Xiami App users all received the same copy, which was the last daily recommended playlist.
Several song titles are concatenated into a sentence "When love is a thing of the past, I finally lost you, I love you, goodbye".
In the early morning of February 5, Xiami was officially shut down.
When many Xiami users still don't know where to go, major online music apps such as NetEase Cloud Music (hereinafter referred to as NetEase Cloud), QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo have successively launched the function of migrating Xiami's playlists, which is a strong "acceptance".
Among them, NetEase Cloud and Kugou both provide free members for new users who migrate from Xiami with one click. Migu Music also stated that platinum members can be drawn by importing Xiami playlists.
Netease Cloud, Kugou and Migu Music's shrimp migration instructions Source: Weibo screenshot
The user dispute triggered by the shutdown of Xiami kicked off the next "formal game".
NetEase Cloud VS Kugou "War of War" Upgrade
On February 4, NetEase Cloud released the "Recommendation on Cancelling Year-End Rewards for Kugou Music-Related Teams", stating that the patent documents applied for in December 2015 displayed by Kugou had nothing to do with its online "follow listening" function, and wish it cool Dog music "Happy Year of the Monkey".
On the 2nd, NetEase Cloud pointed out that Kugou's online "Follow Listen" function imitated NetEase Cloud's "Listen Together" to the pixel level, including inviting friends page information and display form "Kugouization".
In addition, three months after NetEase Cloud’s 7.1.10 version launched the "Yunbei Push Song" function in April 2020, Kugou launched the "Music Push" function, the player function entry position, and the push song interactive form "Kugou"化" etc.
Screenshot source: Weibo
At that time, NetEase Cloud @酷狗音乐 with text: "Happy Year of the Dog!" On the same day, Kugou responded that by the end of 2020, Kugou had more than 2,000 original patent applications, including those applied in December 2015 and March 2020. Listen to the patent together.
In 2015, Kugou launched "Music Push" and applied for patents simultaneously, dedicated to helping musicians grow.
Screenshot source: Weibo
Two days later, NetEase Cloud once again "opened the bar."
"In response to many users and media friends who recently came to inquire about Kugou Music's patent documents, we carefully reviewed the five patent documents mentioned in the official Weibo, and now we can say with certainty: This is a Kugou Music Using patent documents that are irrelevant and don't match the mouth of the donkey, treat the public and the media as a farce of monkey play."
Netease Cloud Music emphasizes that the patents released by Kugou Music and the current product functional form, interface design and interactive form are not the same as the mouth; Kugou Music "listens together" and "Yunbei Song" interface to NetEase Cloud Music The plagiarism of the design is hard evidence.
Netease Cloud also mentioned that in view of the stolen posts, sheep-head dog meat, and unscrupulous deceit of the public that the Kugou Music team demonstrated in the sophistry of the NetEase Cloud Music Time, we think it is necessary to apply for cancellation of the year-end awards of the Kugou Music-related teams .
Following the hot-search topic #网易云称酷狗贼ologist#, #酷狗音乐 executives' response to plagiarize NetEase Cloud# also caused heated discussions.
Suspected Kugou Music CEO Xie Huan’s Moments posted: “It turns out that the QQ listening function I made in 2006 has such far-reaching strategic significance. After finding the demand document of the year, can I sue others for copying me? "
After the official end, netizens also stood in line.
Someone suggested that "you can be a dog, but you can't be a cool dog", and joked that "NetEase deserves to be a company of Onmyoji."
Some people think that "companies copy each other while telling each other to copy".
There are also many netizens who "have been bitter about the copyright of NetEase Cloud for a long time" and said, "Compared with Kugou, the copyright of NetEase Cloud is really small. NetEase Cloud has this idea, it is better not to get more copyrights of songs."
Online music competition is heating up
Regarding the conflict between NetEase Cloud and Kugou, Zhang Yi, the founder of iiMedia Consulting Group, commented that no matter what the reason for the "start" at this time before the Spring Festival, the online music platform dispute will not be circumvented at present and in the future. Open topic.
According to the "2020 China Music Industry Development Report", the scale of China's digital music industry reached 66.4 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year, and the user penetration rate of online music was as high as 71.1%.
According to the report, online music platforms have become the main way for the masses to consume music and have broad development prospects.
After Xiami Music faded out of sight, the market division of online music became clearer.
In addition to NetEase Cloud Music, many other head platforms QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo Music are all related to Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME).
According to the 2020 semi-annual report released by Tencent Music, the total revenue of the group in the second quarter of 2020 increased by 17.5% year-on-year to 6.93 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of the company was 939 million yuan; its online music service revenue increased by 42.2% year-on-year, higher than 27.4% in the first quarter.
On the day of the earnings report, Tencent Music also announced the renewal of the copyright licensing agreement with Universal Music, saying that it would establish a joint music label.
NetEase also pointed out in the third quarter 2020 financial report that the net income of innovation and other businesses in the third quarter increased by 41.6% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin was 16.8%. The year-on-year increase in gross profit margin was mainly due to the net income growth of NetEase Cloud Music. .
In terms of the number of active users, the comparison between several platforms is more obvious.
Analysys Qianfan data shows that in June 2020, the top four active players in the mobile music industry are Kugou, QQ Music, NetEase Cloud and Kuwo, and Migu Music, which ranks fifth, has a large gap with the top four.
Among them, NetEase Cloud has 137 million active users and Kugou has 258 million. The network penetration rates of the two active users are 13.3% and 25.1%, respectively.
Comparison of the number of active people in the mobile music industry Source: Analysys Qianfan
In the post-copyright era, what does online music do?
Behind this battle between NetEase Cloud and Kugou, the word repeatedly mentioned by online music users is still "copyright", and copyright was once considered by the industry to be the cause of the disappearance of Xiami.
Since 2015, the National Copyright Administration organized a special rectification on the copyright order of online music, and then platforms rushed to spend money to compete for copyright resources.
The copyright operation requires high-cost maintenance, and higher requirements for the realization of the platform.
Head platforms, including NetEase Cloud, Kugou, QQ Music, etc., are also vying to establish a copyright moat.
The Huayi Brothers Research Institute article pointed out that it is difficult for pure music content platforms to make profits, which requires each platform to actively create more innovative ecology, and find more profit models and innovative ecology beyond single purchase, subscription, advertising, etc., to give the platform More choices for internal users, creating greater user stickiness and payment scenarios.
For example, NetEase Cloud has previously launched a variety of products including Music Street and LOOK Live, in an attempt to achieve higher income through services such as live broadcast.
Tencent Music Entertainment Group has been keen to cross-border in recent years, opening up new markets with "music + games", "music + variety shows", "music + film and television".
QQ Music is also using closed-loop content to form a mature business model to monetize.
IiMedia Consulting also pointed out in the report that the future trend of online music platforms is to dig deeper into the value of music in the fields of social entertainment, performing arts and entertainment, improve content diversification, enrich users' online music entertainment experience, and gradually complete the transformation of operating models and expand. User payment channels, cultivate user payment habits, and increase the proportion of user payment in platform revenue.
And back to the product itself, the major music platforms are indeed becoming more and more similar.
Sino-Singapore Jingwei randomly experienced several music apps, the homepage interface was overwhelming, and the main functions were homogenized, such as podcasts, playlists, interactive communities, and live broadcast rooms.
The most intuitive difference is still reflected in copyright resources.
An online music user told the Zhongxin Jingwei client that the songs of her favorite idol group only have resources on one of the platforms, so she will use this platform. If one day the idol changes to another platform to release new songs, she will also Follow away.
Darui Consulting founder Ma Jihua also said that the online music market has been highly intensive, and there are only a few giants left. From copyright to users, they have formed a strong bilateral effect. Such fierce market competition also shows that the industry is competing for users. Has reached the point of white-hot.
It is foreseeable that online music platforms such as NetEase Cloud will make full efforts in copyright protection, user competition, and realization of business models in the future.
(Zhongxin Jingwei APP)
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