The charging standard for music used in the live broadcast room has been released up to 10,000 yuan for one year

　　Securities Times reporter Wu Zhi

　　On July 25, the official website of the China Audiovisual Copyright Collective Management Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Audio Collection Association") released an announcement on the trial implementation of the "Standards for Remuneration for the Use of Sound Recordings in Internet Live Broadcasting (Draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft").

The draft clarifies the charging standards for the use of background music and K-songs in pan-entertainment live broadcasts and e-commerce live broadcasts.

Among them, the highest fee for the use of background music in the e-commerce live broadcast room is 10,000 yuan a year.

　　However, after attracting widespread attention, on July 27, the official website of the Music Collection Association could not search for the specific content of the draft.

A reporter from Securities Times e company called the Audio Collection Association, and a relevant person said that the draft is "not announced" for the time being, but the Audio Collection Association will still negotiate with users according to the draft.

　　After the fee standard was announced, it was deleted

　　The anchors use background music and sing songs in the live broadcast room, which are the most common scenes on the live broadcast platform.

However, whether these acts involve infringement, and if so, what standard should be used to pay copyright fees, there has been no conclusion.

On July 25, the "Remuneration Standard for the Use of Sound Recordings in Internet Live Broadcasting (Draft)" announced by the Audio Collection Association answered this question.

　　In terms of payment obligations, the main body of payment obligations for the use of music in live broadcast rooms is the anchors and platforms who use sound recordings.

The remuneration standard is oriented to the platform, and the usage cost is shared by the platform and the anchor.

　　In terms of charging standards, according to the type of live broadcast room, it is divided into pan-entertainment live broadcast and e-commerce live broadcast, and different payment standards are implemented.

In pan-entertainment live broadcasts, the charging standard for live broadcast rooms used as K song + background music is 300 yuan/year, 83 yuan/quarter, 29 yuan/month; for live broadcast rooms that only use background music, 100 yuan/year, 26 yuan/year Quarterly, 10 yuan/month.

For e-commerce live broadcast rooms using music, the charges are 10,000 yuan/year, 2,777 yuan/quarter, and 980 yuan/month.

　　According to this standard, if the personal anchor simply plays background music in the live broadcast room, the fee to be paid is 10 yuan/month.

However, if it is used as background music in the live broadcast, the fee is 980 yuan/month.

If you want to sing the corresponding song in the live room, you need to pay 29 yuan / month.

　　After the above-mentioned draft was released, it has attracted great attention both inside and outside the industry.

According to the announcement of the Sound Collection Association, the charging standard will be implemented on a trial basis from July 25.

However, on July 27, when the reporter logged on to the official website of the Yinji Association again, he found that the draft originally published in the "Association Announcement" had been deleted.

The promotional images of the draft that were placed in the position of the focus map were also deleted.

　　A relevant person from the Sound Collection Association told reporters that the draft is "not announced" for the time being, but the Sound Collection Association will still negotiate with users in accordance with the draft.

When the reporter asked to know the specific content of the document, the person said that he did not have the relevant documents in his hands.

　　According to the announcement, the Audio Collection Association drafted this standard mainly in accordance with the provisions of Article 45 of the new version of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China, which will take effect on June 1, 2021: the use of sound recordings for wired or wireless public transmission, or the use of sound recordings If the technical equipment for transmitting sound is broadcast to the public, remuneration shall be paid to the producer of the sound recording.

　　Copyright owner after full payment

　　Annual income can reach 2.2 billion yuan

　　Since November last year, the Audio Collection Association has held several seminars to discuss the charging standards for the use of sound recordings in webcasts.

At the seminar on July 8, the Sound Collection Association proposed the corresponding copyright fee standard (draft), and negotiated with the user representatives.

　　The specific standards are: pan-entertainment live broadcast (excluding K song) 100 yuan/live room/year; pan-entertainment live broadcast (including K song) 300 yuan/live room/year; e-commerce live broadcast room 10,000 yuan/live room/year .

This is comparable to the standard published on July 25.

　　At the seminar that day, Guokun, deputy director-general of the Music Collection Association, introduced that the above standards were proposed after comprehensively considering the revenue of the live broadcast industry, the dependence of different types of live broadcasts on music recordings, and the affordability of users.

The above standard unit price is low, simple and easy to implement, and the burden on users is very light, but it requires the cooperation of the platform to realize the full payment of the live broadcast room.

If the live broadcast room is fully paid, the entire live broadcast industry is estimated to bring copyright revenue of 2.2 billion yuan to the copyright owner every year.

　　In the two seminars in December last year and March this year, representatives of users such as Douyin and Kuaishou attended the meeting.

However, on July 8, the Sound Collection Association stated that in the past six months, the Sound Collection Association has negotiated three rates with the representatives of the live broadcast platform. The platform has neither accepted the plan proposed by the right holder nor proposed other plans, and the progress has been delayed.

　　In the July 25 announcement, the Voice Collection Association also stated that the association is negotiating with representatives of Internet platforms on the payment standard.

The publication of the standard is precisely to promote the negotiation work.

　　While promoting the negotiation, the Audio Collection Association has also begun to seek to resolve the issue of rates through litigation and arbitration under the new Copyright Law.

According to the Voice Collection Association, the association has collected evidence on the infringing platform and has started filing cases one after another.

At the same time, some platforms have actively fulfilled their copyright responsibilities, recognized the rate standards under negotiation, and negotiated with the Sound Collection Association and agreed to pre-pay the copyright guarantee fee.

　　What kind of organization is the Sound Association?

　　To most of the public, the Sound Collection Association is not a familiar organization.

　　Public information shows that the Audio Collection Association is the only collective management organization for audio and video copyrights in my country officially approved by the National Copyright Administration and registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. It is a non-profit social organization.

The main types of rights managed by the Audio Collection Association include the performance rights, projection rights, broadcasting rights, rental rights, information network dissemination rights, reproduction and distribution rights of audio-visual programs.

　　Its business scope is mainly to sign audio-visual copyright collective management contracts with members in accordance with the law; according to the authorization of members and relevant laws and regulations, sign use contracts with users of audio-visual programs and collect royalties; and distribute the collected audio-visual copyright royalties to members, etc. .

　　According to the latest announcement of the Music Collection Association, in 2020, its copyright royalty income will be 238 million yuan, the number of members will be 357, and the number of music and TV works managed by it will be 188,000.

The newly added members of the Music Collection Association in 2020 mainly include music production companies, entertainment brokerage companies, copyright operation companies, film and television music companies, MCN institutions, etc.

　　However, the copyright royalties of the Sound Collection Association mainly come from karaoke establishments.

In 2020, 222 million yuan of its revenue came from karaoke establishments, that is, the fees paid by KTV and other establishments to the Sound Collection Association for the use of audio-visual products.

　　In 2020, the Music Collection Association began to issue licenses to Internet platforms for the first time.

Since September of that year, the Audio Collection Association has successively reached cooperation with ByteDance, Weishi, Quanmin Small Video and other platforms on streaming media players, live broadcasts, online karaoke and other forms of use, and the income from the Internet platform is only 4.75 million yuan.

　　The Audio Collection Association said that through the work of the association, many rights holders have obtained copyright fee income from the short video platform for the first time, and the association's business has also expanded from traditional karaoke to the Internet field, and at the same time, it has promoted the way of collective copyright management in the emerging Internet field. , establish a healthy and balanced Internet copyright order.

　　In China, there are 5 copyright collective management organizations similar to the Audio Collection Association, which manage audio and video (audio collection association), lyrics and music (audio and writing association), text (literature and writing association), photography (photographing association), and film (movie writing association). Association) and other works of copyright.

　　Among them, the Heyin Collection Association is also an organization that collectively manages musical works, as well as the China Music Copyright Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Music Works Association").

The difference between the two is that the Audio Collection Association mainly manages audio and video recordings of music, while the Audio Writing Association mainly manages the lyrics and compositions of music.

　　According to the data, the Music Works Association was established in December 1992. It is the only collective management organization for the copyright of musical works in China jointly established by the National Copyright Administration and the China Musicians Association. Non-profit organizations with legitimate interests.

　　As of the end of 2021, the total number of domestic members of the Music Works Association is 11,356, including composers, lyricists, heirs, and other individuals and groups that legally own music copyrights.

In 2021, the copyright license fee income of the Audiovisual Association will be about 442 million yuan.