Securities Times reporter Wang Xiaowei

　　iQIYI and Douyin recently announced their cooperation to explore the secondary creation and promotion of long video content.

This is the first time that the two leading platforms of long and short videos in China have "turned enemies into friends".

　　From the perspective of cooperation, on the one hand, it is beneficial to solve the copyright hidden danger of short video content, and on the other hand, it can revitalize the copyright assets of long video.

The market believes that the copyright disputes and separatist disputes that have long existed between long and short video platforms are expected to be broken.

　　Two years ago, iQiyi also sued that short videos caused great losses to the copyright of long videos; a year ago, Tencent Video sued Douyin for infringement claims, setting a record for the highest amount of rights protection for long videos.

These reflect the contradiction between long video and short video platforms that cannot be easily reconciled for a long time.

　　The reason why this kind of contradiction occurs is that the root cause still points to interests.

　　As a traditional long video platform, "Aiyouteng" is the concentration of the vast majority of long video IP content in the market.

From the A side, this is one of the core moats of the long video platform; from the B side, the annual copyright purchase costs of the three companies account for the bulk of the operating cost, and the heavy asset model directly limits the profitability of the long video platform.

Take iQIYI as an example. In recent years, the ratio of content cost to revenue has exceeded 80%.

　　Although the details of the cooperation are still unknown, from the perspective of cooperation logic, the short video platform can become the content distribution and channel promotion of the long video platform, and at the same time bring traffic support, making the long video more space for payment and advertising marketing; The long video platform can resolve the copyright risk of the short video platform, and prepare for the introduction of long content on the basis of the cooperation between the two companies.

　　This round of cooperation comes at a time when iQiyi may open a delicate window of profitability.

In the first quarter of 2022, iQIYI has achieved a net profit of 160 million yuan based on non-GAAP. At the key point, how to ride the momentum is an important issue that iQIYI has to answer for shareholders and other investors.

　　However, considering the underlying logic, it is difficult to escape the background of the decline of long video.

With the continuous increase in the proportion of short video applications, the urgency of iQIYI to seek traffic drainage and popularity support has undoubtedly increased greatly.

It is precisely because of this that the interpretation of iQIYI's "If you can't beat it, join in" will appear in the market.

　　Horizontally, this cooperation may bring challenges to other platforms.

After years of losses, iQIYI launched the first shot of long and short video cooperation. Will Youku, the most anxious, continue the strategy of "paying for the money"?

Will Kuaishou and Station B make countermeasures?

Will it accelerate the copyright battle between major platforms?

These issues will become a new focus of the market.

　　In depth, although there are differences in the rise time of long and short videos, after years of evolution, the boundaries are gradually blurred.

In the previous barbaric growth period, many long and short video platforms maintained a competitive attitude of fighting against each other on the one hand, and on the other hand they also attacked each other's hinterland. How to develop in compliance and orderly development has always been a difficult problem hanging over the industry.

　　On the other hand, with the purging of the economic cycle, whether in the film and television entertainment industry or the Internet industry, the characteristics of the low tide period have become more and more obvious and will last for several years.

How to hold a group to achieve copyright expansion and at the same time achieve traffic upgrade has become a better market strategy.

This should be regarded as the first ice-breaking reconciliation between the long and short video platforms, and the deeper reason why they have adopted the strategy of taking what they need and sticking together to keep warm.

　　Overall, the first ice-breaking reconciliation between long and short video platforms does not mean the end of the competition between long and short video platforms, but just the beginning of industrial competition from "mess battles" to "team battles".

The competition and cooperation of enterprises and industrial cleansing between long and short video platforms should only be the beginning.