Embrace every life and hear every voice.
Source | Three Tones
Text|Lu Na
Kaishou is constantly building the music ecology of the platform, and the first step to make the entire music ecology of the platform realize a positive cycle is to give the music supplier enough creative income.
In the past few years, short videos have subversively reshaped the way music is produced and promoted. Many music works have quickly become popular on short video platforms, and users have become accustomed to changing from “listening to music” to “watching music”. Change, but what follows is the issue of how to protect the copyright of music under the dissemination of new media.
Kwaishou held the first copyright ecology conference with the theme of “Spring Sound” on March 22, and officially announced the copyright settlement standards for 2021. In the rules released this time, Kuaishou has formulated a completely market-oriented settlement framework to calculate the copyright income of the right holder based on the amount of song usage-the more users use it, the higher the copyright income, and the settlement amount at the same time There is no upper limit to provide maximum support for creators.
At the same time, the new settlement standard is no longer only for a single recording product unified settlement, but subdivided into lyrics and music, giving more practical value to each link of music creation. In addition to short video usage scenarios, Kuaishou also added music settlement rules in live broadcast scenarios. In addition, at this copyright conference, Kuaishou also announced other industry-friendly measures, such as an advance payment system, an open platform to easily query song data, and non-exclusive licensed works equally enjoy the settlement standard.
Using market-based settlement methods to motivate upstream rights holders to create enthusiasm to meet the needs and preferences of downstream users is the fundamental purpose. Kuaishou’s various measures in music are constantly confirming its concept of fairness and inclusiveness.
Inclusive & Whitney
Just as Kuaishou’s slogan “embrace every kind of life”, for the music of Kuaishou’s fourth largest ecology, this fair and universal principle of respect for diversity is also vividly reflected.
Generally thinking of the “niche” label, we will naturally think of those more experimental or pioneering forms of music. And Shuai Yuan, the person in charge of Kuaishou, gave us a new perspective, “Folk song is not a sub-category that can be ranked in the top of the top on any other streaming media platform, but our platform isYes.”The voice of the real “public” far away from the public opinion field is often too weak or even “disappeared” on mainstream media platforms, but on the fast-handed stage, every hobby will be respected, and every voice will be respected. Heard.
The category of folk songs that are not valued on other platforms will not only be used by users in Kuaishou, but the platform will also find the corresponding copyright owners indiscriminately and pay the corresponding copyright fees in accordance with the latest copyright settlement standards.
Last year, Kuaishou also reached a cooperation with Midi and obtained the exclusive live broadcast rights of the Midi Music Festival in 2020. This not only provides users who love rock music on the platform but have not been able to come to the scene, the opportunity to connect to the “Cloud Bunddi” on the screen. Also take this opportunity to expand the user group who likes rock music.
The inclusiveness is also reflected in the settlement policy that opened the settlement channel to independent musicians for the first time. Nowadays, with the continuous development of media and technology, the threshold of creation has been lowered, and more and more people have begun to try music creation and publish works on the platform.
In Kuaishou Music’s view, both independent musicians and music companies are equal upstream suppliers. The platform does not judge the value of partners based on the number of works, but uses the same cooperation model, namely, market-based pricing. Pay for copyright. This change in copyright settlement standards can be seen as Kuaishou’s support strategy for all creators, including independent musicians.
Behind the music is people. Based on the characteristics of the Kuaishou short video platform, Kuaishou musicians can not only sing and produce songs, but also share daily life with fans by publishing short videos. Compared with traditional vertical music platforms, they can show more three-dimensionally. The appearance of musicians and the acquisition of more sticky fans have also opened up a new path of “because of liking people and starting to pay attention to music,” in addition to the logic of “being fond of musicians because of music”.
So the support for Kuaishou musicians in the platform is not only in the dimension of songs, but also in the dimension of videos. If Kuaishou musicians can create short video works, they can enjoy all kinds of traffic support from the platform on short videos and live broadcasts in addition to music copyright income.
In some music IP columns that Kuaishou tried, whether it’s music or video, whether it’s traffic or cash, Kuaishou can use the platform’s monetization capabilities to help creators increase their income.
The Kuaishou master “Sun Kuaikuai Matouqin” is a good example. Sun Kuaikuai released a series of matouqin playing videos and was loved by Kuaishou users. He has accumulated 350,000 fans and was excavated in the Guofeng music activities held by Kuaishou and supported by the platform.
In February of this year, Sun Kuaikuai appeared on the stage of Kuaishou Music’s original IP program “Original Singing Is Coming”, accompanied by the famous singer Tengger, and participated in the recording of the Guangdong Satellite TV variety show “National Music Festival”. The transformation of grassroots musicians. In addition to providing traffic and exposure, the platform will also distribute commercial revenue from music IP to the fast-hand musicians participating in the program.
The platform ecology of Kuaishou also provides musicians with more diversified development opportunities, bringing greater realisation space beyond traffic exposure and song copyright revenue. Kuaishou musician Qi Long became popular with live music, he made his own live variety show “Long Entertainment Talent Show” on the platform, recruited and cultivated new talents, and started e-commerce with the help of Kuaishou’s e-commerce business. The company’s annual revenue Nearly 100 million.
Solution
From the online music platform to the short video platform, the legalization is always the destination. However, how to ensure the rights holders’ copyright income in different scenarios such as short videos and live broadcasts has always been a pain point in the industry. Platforms need to be alert to issues such as song ownership, missing data, and complicated authorization and confirmation procedures.
Different from two or three years ago, the short video platform used purely guaranteed “rental” or resource replacement to obtain music copyright from copyright owners, musicians and other rights holders. Kuaishou announced the settlement policy and various Actions that benefit the industry can prove its determination in copyright protection.
In the copyright settlement standard released by Kuaishou this time, one of the highlights that is worth noting is that “exclusive authorization is not required.” In the past, many content platforms required exclusive agreements with copyright owners to compete for more users. But this means that content creators have to give up other channels that have the opportunity to disseminate their works. For middle-waist music creators, it is especially necessary to maintain exposure of their works on multiple platforms. Exclusiveness is not conducive to creators’ dissemination of content. It is more unfavorable for users on the platform to enjoy music works.
After ten years of copyright wars, online music platforms have adopted a copyright mutual grant strategy last year, achieving a win-win situation for both the platform and users. Non-exclusive is also the development trend of streaming media platforms, and online music is entering the post-copyright era.
Kaishou Music believes that the short video platform’s seizure of exclusive music rights is platform revenue, not creator’s revenue, only based on the underlying logic of “win-win”To improve the income of creators, upstream content production will have the motivation to continuously invest in creation, and the industry can establish an ecological cycle. It is not a wise choice to harvest the short-term value of creators.
In the latest copyright settlement announced by Kuaishou this time, the prepayment system and the unlimited settlement amount are also worth noting.
The advance payment system means that Kuaishou will deduct the advance payment for high-quality copyright owners according to the settlement funds generated in each settlement cycle (monthly/quarterly). Whether it can be judged as “high-quality” initiative is entirely in the hands of the copyright owner, as long as the other party believes that it meets the standards, it can initiate an application to Kuaishou Music.
The unlimited settlement amount will also attract more creators to join the content production. Under the completely market-oriented incentive method of “more use more, less use less”, creators’ income will be intuitively improved. Kuaishou Music will rely on only one head musician to appear on the basis of internal model analysis. The first work can achieve hundreds of thousands of copyright revenues within a few weeks.
Faster and more monetized income will increase the creative enthusiasm of musicians. At the same time, users will have more choices on the platform to get a better experience, and the overall vitality and creativity of the platform will continue to be in a positive cycle. rich.
Compared with short videos, the industry has paid more attention to the issue of music copyright in the rapid development of live broadcasts in recent years, but copyright monitoring in live broadcast scenarios has always been difficult. With the addition of the right to remuneration for broadcasting of sound recordings in the revision of the new “Copyright Law,” the use of music copyrights in live broadcast scenarios will be better regulated.
The settlement model released by Kuaishou this time will be implemented three months earlier than the new “Copyright Law” to settle usage fees in live broadcast scenarios. At the same time, the new settlement policy will also promote more copyright parties to cooperate with the platform, so as to better obtain copyright information and facilitate the platform to confirm and settle the rights.
In addition to the upgrade of the settlement strategy for the live broadcast scene, Kuaishou also upgraded the copyright settlement standard for lyrics and music. As one of the important creators of a song, it is often difficult for the songwriter to obtain income from the performance surroundings. Under this settlement policy, Kuaishou will break through the previous payment of the songwriter’s fee directly to the recording copyright owner. In this way, these behind-the-scenes creators can get some “direct” cash incentives.
Meng Jie, Director of Legal Affairs of Kuaishou, specifically pointed out, “Some song recording copyright owners do not own the copyright of the song and music. Therefore, we will open the copyright holders of the song and music to settle accounts separately. On the one hand, the pressure on the copyright of the recordingAdded a channel for the copyright owner of the song and music to directly obtain income. “
Expand different music copyright settlement scenarios, set up fair and inclusive market-based incentives, and provide a diversified operating environment for music works. Kuaishou Music provides copyright owners with maximum support. With the continuous optimization of music copyright settlement standards, more and more rights holders will truly benefit from it.
For the platform itself, the upstream music suppliers have more enthusiasm for content creation, which will not only promote more fresh, high-quality and differentiated content into the platform, but also cover more styles of music. Meet the diverse demands of downstream platform users, so as to achieve a healthy and sustainable platform music ecological cycle.