During the "May 1" small holiday, the copyright storm of the reading platform has aroused attention, and the conflict between the platform and the author, fees and free, copyright and income has become increasingly fierce. How does the development model of an online literature platform with 8.1 million authors continue, and what new ecology will it build? This is not only the confusion and bottleneck of the reading platform, but also an unavoidable subject for the high-quality development of the digital cultural industry.

Platform and author conflict

  On April 27, Yuewen announced the replacement of the management team. The team of Wu Wenhui, the first generation founder of Internet Literature and the chief promoter of the listing of Yuewen Group, retired from the ranks. Cheng Wu, vice president of Tencent Group, led the new team to take up the post.

  However, the new team hadn't had time to make an official appearance and spoke out. On April 28, the "New Deal" was published online, and it was asserted that "the charging model will end and the free model will be implemented." In particular, on the Internet, the contract between the September 2019 reading and the author is described as the “overlord contract” that the new team will promote, listing six issues including “occupying the copyright of the author” and “encroaching on the income of the deceased author”. Although the reading platform refuted the rumors three times, it still aroused the concern of the majority of online authors.

  "The new team is faced with both rumors and information asymmetry, and it also has to face the long-standing contradiction accumulated by the online literature platform. The conflict between the platform and the author has made the contradiction public." Publishers who have long paid attention to the development of online literature Lu Jinbo believes that after 22 years of turbulent changes, the online literature platform has become a big "world" of the reading group. Online writers are worried about their income and fear of "big shop bullying", and jointly promote the essence of this storm. It is hope that the new team will solve the long-term accumulated problems.

  "Although I encountered this storm and challenge just after I took office, and even deliberately discredited and rumored it, the new team is to solve the problem." Cheng Wu admitted that the new team cannot build a car behind closed doors for industry problems that have existed for many years. Rather, we should try our best to discuss reasonable development models, ecological rules and rights and interests with writer partners.

Paid and free options

  In this turmoil, free became the key word that provokes the nerves of network authors, and it is also the "last straw" that worries them. From the perspective of the development process of reading, long-term cultivation of readers and promotion of paid reading, payment is the foundation of success, and has achieved stable operation of reading and listing development. But now, why the dispute between free and paid can cause such a big wave?

  This starts with the change in the income structure of reading. Reading's financial report for 2019 shows that the online business, which mainly pays for reading, declined for the first time, achieving revenue of RMB 3.71 billion, and its share of total reading revenue decreased from 85.2% in 2017 to 44%. In other words, in the past, the income model of reading was mainly paid reading, but now the income of copyright operation is rising, and the network text is created as IP, which fully enhances its extensibility, links upstream and downstream, and realizes the commercial value-added of the content. In 2019, copyright operation revenue increased by 283% to 4.64 billion yuan, accounting for 56% of revenue. From the popular domestic TV series "Langya Bang" and "Flower Thousand Bone", to the "Chen Qingling" and "Fuyao Queen" who have gone abroad and fanned overseas, the mode of realization of "video and text linkage" has gradually matured.

  With the change in incomes and trades, coupled with the peak of paying users, online reading income is difficult to continue to grow. In June 2017, the number of users who paid for reading articles rose to 11.5 million, and then began to fall. The monthly average in 2019 was 9.8 million. The payment rate also fell from 5.8% in 2017 to 4.5% in 2019. Although the per capita monthly consumption of users has increased from 20.5 yuan to 25.3 yuan, the average monthly active users in 2019 can only increase by 2.9% year-on-year, and the reading platform is facing the problem of weakening the "reader bonus". Therefore, online writers are inevitable to worry that the reading platform will imitate other platforms to use free to attract new users and maintain the platform's traffic.

  "Not all online authors can operate with copyright, and use the online literature IP to generate authorized adaptations of movies, movies, and profits. Most IPs of online authors are difficult to convert. Paid reading is still the main source of income." The saying of "His Majesty the King", the author of "Mountain", is very representative. Free is equivalent to a salary at the bottom of the kettle, cutting off the source of income that depends on survival, and causing online authors' worries and huge emotional fluctuations.

  Regarding the paid and free models, Hou Xiaonan, President and Executive Director of Reading Group, said: "The mechanism for free reading is still under discussion. The paid reading will definitely continue to consolidate and grow, and in the future when considering the free model, there will also be clear Writer ’s income. At the same time, it is necessary to plan different work content libraries for paid and free, to match different product channels and corresponding income systems. Of course, no matter which model is chosen by the writer. "

  After reading the article as the first platform of online literature, we must face the competition of diverse entertainment methods, especially the challenge of video. According to Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Cultural Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, creating an "upgraded version" of the online literature ecology is not an easy task. The copyright operation chain is long, there are many uncertainties, and the risks of the "big investment and big industry" model are also Large, the average production of a play and an IP ranges from tens of millions of yuan to as much as 100 million yuan, and the input and output sometimes do not match. The acquisition of Xinli Media in 2018 is to hope to achieve a new breakthrough in the field of film and television, but due to the impact of the overall film and television industry cycle and business promotion restrictions, the 2019 performance has not achieved the expected results. The exploration of the reading business model is still on the way, it is impossible to "self-cutting wings" and give up a stable income source of more than 40% of paid reading.

Evolution of ecology and governance

  Recently, there have been a series of vicious incidents that attacked writers and threatened writers to cut off their words. Internet authors have expressed that “the practice of smashing the pot and turning the table cannot solve the problem, it requires rational consultation and positive change, and resolutely resists cyber violence”.

  Online literature has grown from scratch, from small to large, from savage growth to normative growth, from the edge to the mainstream, from grassroots entertainment to the new force of online literature and art, from the "net culture rivers and lakes" of some literature lovers to having 24.42 million works, With a "scale army" of 430 million readers, online literature has become an important part of China's contemporary literature and art.

  "The writer and the platform are fish and water relations. Everyone supports each other all the way to the situation of the industry today. Everyone's value direction is the same, and they should make a big cake together." Yang Chen, editor-in-chief of Yuewen Group, sincerely said that the author is Yue The foundation of the literary platform, the content ecology is not just for reading, but also for writers. The benign network literary ecology has enabled a large number of excellent network literary works to be incubated, developed, and derived, reaching a wider audience. It has also allowed new generations of potential writers to stand out, and the network literary talent team has continued to grow.

  Coming from the market, respecting originality and copyright, and becoming a multi-party common interest community, this is the magic weapon for the growth of online literature in the past, and it is also bound to be the path of online literature to the future. As a large platform for gathering 8.1 million online writers, reading is highly diversified in interests among authors at different levels. Different claims will inevitably arise around issues such as copyright ownership of works, priority of author works, and share of paid net profit.

  "The small boat races to go first, and the turmoil is not worrying." Experts in the industry believe that it is not terrible to have a storm, and it is normal to have differences. The platform and the author use this as an opportunity to rationally face and negotiate together to discuss the industry-wide The new model and new ecology have introduced more refined and diversified web creations that the masses like to hear, so that the web industry has become a source of nourishing cultural development.

(Reporter Zhang Yuling Yan Weiqi)