In recent years, the copyright awareness of both content creators and ordinary netizens has been increasing, but there are still many blind spots, and music is one of them.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Hedgehog Commune” (ID: ciweigongshe), author Chen Bin , edit Tie Lin. Authorized to publish.
7000 yuan.
This is a penalty for music infringement at the @Bigger Institute, an account of papitube. Among them, 4,000 yuan is the economic loss of the copyright owner, and the remaining 3,000 yuan is a reasonable expenditure for rights protection.
The matter itself is not complicated. Last year, the Bigger Institute used the original music “Walking On the Sidewalk” by Japanese music label Lullatone as background music in the short video “2018 Strongest Domestic Mobile Phone Review”. After learning this information, Lullatone, the copyright owner, commissioned VFine Music to defend himself.
Infringement Video/Source Weibo@VFineMusic
VFine Music is a domestic music copyright commercial distribution platform. It was founded by Tang Ziyu, CEO of Douban FM. It has copyright management services such as music authorization, monitoring and confirmation. It has been nicknamed “Music Edition Vision China” by netizens.
This is the first time that the domestic short video MCN has been involved in a lawsuit due to music infringement.
The outbreak of short videos has brought countless content entrepreneurs to their spring. As barbarism grows, more and more issues such as music infringement are beginning to be exposed.
01.Area appeal or bundled sales?
After the event was fermented, the topic “#papi sauce company short video soundtrack was sued for infringement” once reached the top of Weibo. The Bigger Institute, an account of papitube, admitted that its copyright awareness was not strong, and immediately removed all infringing videos and took legal steps to solve the problem.
On August 30th, the Beijing Internet Court opened its fifth hearing, ruling that the infringement of papitube was established and compensated 7,000 yuan. Despite the domestic music copyright commercial distribution platformVFine Music won the lawsuit, but still said it will continue to appeal.
“The amount awarded by the court does not cover the high cost of rights protection.”
VFine Music posted a long article on the official website, mentioning the high cost of cross-border litigation and expressing dissatisfaction with the amount of compensation. As mentioned in the article, as early as January this year, VFine Music tried to communicate with the Bigger Institute for the purpose of reconciliation. After three months of unsuccessful communication, the appeal was chosen. The lawsuit lasted for nearly four months before it was finally finished.
In addition to this, VFine Music mentions the current general tort compensation scheme, which is generally 1 yuan per thousand clicks. The Bigger Institute’s infringing video playback volume is nearly 23.09 million, which is far more than the economic loss of 4,000 yuan.
The amount of compensation for this time is also lower than the normal license fee of the copyright party Lullatone.
Trained from Weibo@VFineMusic
On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Bigger Institute, the infringer, also recorded a video devoted to this event. The Bigger Institute once again acknowledged the wrongdoing of its infringement and described the ins and outs of the incident.
Interestingly, there is a difference between the Bigger Institute and VFine Music.
The Bigger Institute mentioned in the video that VFine Music had proposed a private settlement of 80,000 yuan, but it had to pay an additional 100,000 yuan to purchase the copyright of its music library. After the internal research of the Bigger Institute, it is believed that most of the music in the VFine Music library is not suitable for the style of its own video. On the other hand, VFine Music does not have enough tangible evidence to prove that it is indeed the copyright party of these music.
Trained from Weibo@Bigger Institute
The Bigger Institute rejected the request for private reconciliation and chose to take legal steps to resolve it.
This is also the case, although the Bigger Institute is an infringer this time, in the Weibo comment area, there are still some netizens who think that VFine Music wants to take advantage of it.
Through Weibo@Bigger Institute Comments Area
Whether it is VFine Music’s long article at the beginning of the month, or its founder Tang Ziyu’s several speeches, he mentioned VFine Music’s three principles of rights protection, one of which is “reject bundle sales.” As of the time of publication, VFine Music did not respond to the situation mentioned in the Bigger Institute video.
But then again, the Bigger Institute did not justify its actions.
“After all, I have the fault first, and this is also a way to get everyone’s attention, so that it will lead to more people’s copyright awareness, and it is also a good thing in the long run,” Bigger Institute responded to netizens. .
02.What is music infringement?
Nobody mailed a lawyer’s letter, it doesn’t mean there is no problem. The Bigger Institute happens to be the “bird”.
According to the law, unauthorized use of copyrighted music for free public performance, or personal learning, communication and appreciation, may involve infringement.
If the user gets a profit from these unauthorized music, or if the scene used involves promotional elements, then even if it takes only a few seconds for background music, such behavior still involves music infringement. This time the infringer Bigger Institute belongs to the latter case.
In recent years, the copyright awareness of both content creators and ordinary netizens has been increasing, but there are still many blind spots. The music copyright of short videos is one of them.
Detailed music copyright / cut from Weibo@Bigger Institute
In fact, there have been several cases of music copyrights in foreign countries, which is enough to sound alarms for domestic content creators.
A month ago, Nintendo, a world-renowned gaming company, delivered a large number of copyright lawsuits to content creators in a large number of Youtube music districts on the grounds that they had uploaded the music of Nintendo’s games without authorization.
In the eyes of netizens, Nintendo’s legal department is comparable to Disney, and it is called “the strongest legal department on the surface”, and it is not soft to treat any game infringement. But what these YouTube content creators did not expect was that Nintendo had targeted rights to the game music this time.
Even if the soundtrack of other content carriers such as games, movies, etc., is also protected by copyright.
GilvaSunner is one of the content creators who have been warned, and he has 340,000 subscriptions on Youtube. In just a few hours, he received hundreds of copyright lawsuits against Nintendo. Another content creator, BrawlBRSTMs3, was forced to shut down his Youtube channel and log out of his account after receiving copyright lawsuits under pressure from Nintendo.
Top 100 Nintendo Copyright Litigation/Source: Weibo @3DMGAME Official Weibo
This is also the case, the results of this judgment have also caused a lot of netizens’ panic.
“So all the ups of the b-song clip video are infringed?” A netizen sighed in the Weibo comment area. In fact, the realization of music infringement by content creators can be seen everywhere. But if you buy an authorization, the price is too expensive.
The Bigger Institute mentioned in the video that if you want to use music in commercials, the copyright fee for 10 songs will generally cost 1-2 million.
The Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) inquired about several commercial music authorized websites and found that the license fee for a song should be at least one hundred yuan. Take VFine Music’s music library as an example. After playing a 75 percent discount, the copyright fee for 10 songs still reaches 6480 yuan, and only half a year of use, only for short video channels. If you want to use the copyright of these music in other channels, the price of 10 songs will rise to 16,200 yuan.
For some short video content creators with small volumes, this cost is almost unbearable. “The cost of using music is too high, it is recommended not to use it.”
Truncate from VFineMusic’s official website
03.How can short videos avoid music infringement traps?
After the Bigger Institute music infringement case, papitube purchased a music library for all of its short video accounts. At the same time, the WeChat public number papitube also published an article entitled “Self-media copyright guide”, which sorted out some copyright issues such as music and fonts.
In terms of music copyright, in addition to the music library, papitube also offers five free music sites (Musopen, Jamendo, FreePD, Audiionautix and Imslp), each of which will open some copyright-free music resources. However, the number of copyright-free music resources is limited.
However, content creators on short video platforms such as vibrato don’t have to worry too much.
The official soundtrack provided by the short video platform is copyrighted by the platform, and there is no problem of music infringement. Even if it is a lawsuit filed by the copyright owner, the responsibility is borne by the short video platform that provides the soundtrack.
You can get rid of the music library of the short video platform, or publish content on other video platforms. It is almost inevitable to buy a music library.
From the current trend, litigation against music copyrights will become more frequent and will involve more areas than short videos.
Two days before the hot search on the topic “#papi sauce company short video soundtrack is sued for infringement”, VFine Music also warned Youku’s variety show “This is Street Dance”, accusing it of using music without authorization. War Horse. The program team quickly apologized on the official website and tried to communicate compensation measures with the copyright party.
Trained from Weibo@VFineMusic
But similar to such frequent litigation, sometimes it may not achieve the effect of promoting the regulation of the copyright market, but it may hit the enthusiasm of content producers.
The outbreak of short video has only been a few years since the industry has not yet formed a standardized operating model. On the other hand, in addition to a batch of professional content producers similar to the Bigger Institute, there are still many UGC creators who have not previously worked in the content industry. Their understanding of copyright issues is often lacking.
This is also true, similar to papitube, helping content creators to understand the possible copyright pitfalls, perhaps more helpful to the development of the industry.
But for every content creator, it is still necessary to clarify their copyright awareness. Knowing what kind of concert infringement, what kind of place has a trap, and protecting your rights are the most important.