Recently, the main body of Renren Video, Shanghai Numerous Network Technology Co., Ltd., signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Chongqing Nan’an District People’s Government, Chongqing Economic Development Zone Management Committee, and Western Branch of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology in Chongqing, and announced the headquarters base of Renren Video Settled in Nan’an District, Chongqing City. According to the “Chongqing Daily” report, Renren Video Chairman Zhou Weimin introduced that Renren Video will transfer its overall business to Chongqing, and plans to list local companies in Chongqing as the main listing entity at home or abroad.
Renren Video was established in 2014 and is positioned as a “domestic professional overseas video content community”.
In the early days of its establishment, Renren Video was also called Renren Meiju. Can quickly accumulate popularity and gain recognition. At that time, Renrenmei TV also thanked another old predecessor with similar name-Renren Film and Television.
According to Baidu introduction to the encyclopedia, everyone film and television was originally one to share The non-professional subtitle group for foreign film and television programs for the purpose of communication, communication and learning. The predecessor was the YYeTs subtitle group founded by the Canadian Chinese student Xiaoguishen in 2003. It formally established an independent forum on June 1, 2006 and has gradually become one of the well-known film and television sites. One.
Because of the high quality of translation, the wide range of content, and free resources, this group of translation “volunteers” gained a large number of fans before the Internet was fully popularized, and even unpaid donors appeared.
However, with the strengthening of copyright protection, Renren Film and Television has been blocked repeatedly and even named in the blacklist of pirated downloads by the American Motion Picture Association. In November 2014, Renren Film and Television was seized on 5 servers and announced that it was cleaning up the content.
“The subtitle team of Renren Film and Television was hit hard and it was ready to disband. Then the Renren American Drama APP project built by a third-party investment and formation team started cooperation, and we guided all the brands and data to each other for common development.”< a class="project-link" data-id="38685" data-name="weibo" data-logo="https://img.36krcdn.com/20201016/v2_02d1e16551ce4b2b97c26753adc5d65d_img_000" data-refer-type="2 "href="https://36kr.com/projectDetails/38685" target="_blank">Weibo, a user named “Renren Film and Television Subtitle Sharing” published in 2016, “Ten Years of Everyone, It is said in “Start Again”.
At that time, Renren Video has been blessed by Innovation Workshop. With good capital support and Renren Film’s more than ten years of accumulation, it has a good development momentum. However, the team of Renren Film and Television chose to “go out of the house” “due to the large differences in the concepts and values of the two parties and constant conflicts”, and has no connection with Renren Film and Television since then.
“After the breakup”, Renren Video gained attention by selling old fans of Renren Film and Television. Renren Film and Television was forced to invent and clarify that the two were unrelated again in 2017, and solemnly stated that Renren Video was prohibited from being used Any publicity activities in the name of Renren Film and Television.
The two companies that are often confused are going their separate ways. Renren Film and Television has returned to the path of buying genuine resources with subtitles, still “Love Power“; Renren Video quickly expanded its business to Thailand, South Korea, Japan, and other countries, surpassing its predecessors in terms of user scale.
According to various media reports, Renren Video has a total of 160 million users, with an average monthly active user of more than 40 million, making it the fifth largest video platform in China. As a netizen said: “Emotions can’t fight capital after all.”
Don’t change old habits?
What’s interesting is that Renren Film and Television, which started from piracy, has embarked on the formal road of buying copyrights, but left the gene of piracy in Renren Video.
Enterprise search information shows that Renren Video has 7 pieces of information on referee documents and 1 piece of case filing Information belongs to copyright ownership, infringement disputesThe cause of the case, Renren Video’s main operating entity, Shanghai Numerous America and its wholly-owned subsidiary Wuhan YingXiangwang Network Technology Limited companies are all defendants.
In response to copyright issues, Renren Video does not believe that they are infringing. “We never call ourselves a platform, because all users come here based on hobbies, and our content here is basically generated by users. Both content producers and viewers are based on hobbies. Gathered together.” Renren Video once said in an interview in 2018.
What is the approximate amount involved in the copyright infringement of Renren Video? I’m afraid it’s really amazing. Take HBO’s hit American drama “Game of Thrones” as an example. Tencent exclusively introduced copyrights at a price of over 10 million yuan, and VIP members were required to watch it. On Renren Video, you can watch it for free without registering a member.
Clicking on the uploader of “Game of Thrones”, it looks like it is indeed an individual user, but where do individual users find the complete resources of multiple American TV shows?
Even if uploading the entire American drama is really the user’s personal behavior, Renren Video as a platform cannot escape the obligation of supervision. Needless to say, the entire drama, even if it resembles the secondary creation videos of users of station B, was previously taken down due to copyright issues of the film and television works.
In addition to copyright issues, in January this year, Renren Video was forcibly taken down by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology due to “private collection of personal information” without rectification.
Wandering in the gray area of copyright infringement, frantically playing side-by-side, everyone’s video is not changing. If you do not consider profitability and only “benefit the public”, you may still survive in a hidden corner, but now that it is going to be listed, compliance and legality will be more strictly restricted. What does Renren Video plan to do? Moreover, overseas listing is one of its options. The United States has stronger copyright protection. If a long-standing infringement problem is discovered during listing review, how does Renren Video plan to solve it?
It is unrealistic to buy all the copyrights on the platform. Some netizens estimate that even Tencent Video may not be able to afford the money. With all the content removed, where can Renren Video turn?
The big change is coming
Renren Video used to make short videos, trying to share the lipstick benefits of short videos. At the Renren Video Brand Strategy Conference and Overseas Content Summit held in 2017, Zhou Weimin said: “Today’s conference is a review of Renren Video’s stage and the starting point for a new journey. The future of Renren Video is still very long. Long, unique and high-quality short videos must have their place in the current era.”
But now it seems that the contribution of short videos to Renren videos is not obvious. After short videos were placed on the homepage of various countries’ dramas, the number of viewers of each short video is usually only a few thousand.
This time in Chongqing, Zhou Weimin said that Renren Video’s construction content in Chongqing mainly includes four aspects:
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Expand the production and operation of original film and television content, expand the scale of the new media matrix, strengthen the attributes of film and television communities, enhance the ability of film and television distribution, and strive for breakthrough development;
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Take advantage of the platform’s in-depth cooperation with foreign MCN institutions to promote Chinese culture on mainstream foreign social platforms in the form of videos;
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Transfer Renren Video’s overall business operations to Nan’an District and Economic Development Zone, and use Chongqing local companies as the main listing entity to list domestically or abroad;
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Through platform resources to drive the rapid incubation of Internet celebrity bases, and use the advantages of platform creation to increase the production of online TV series and online movies, and drive the concentration of upstream and downstream industry chains.
Through dismantling Zhou Weimin’s speech, Renren Video established a new operating entity in Chongqing in order to separate from the previous entity and leave the previous infringement issues to the previous The main operating entity will deal with it slowly, or even not deal with it, so that it will continue to low-key money. The newly established entities will establish a complete Internet celebrity (actors), works, and publicity industries through three main channels: self-made online dramas and movies, distribution from domestic to overseas, and establishment of their own MCN organization.At the same time, it will use the user group to help other movies and TV broadcasts and collect “channel fees.”
At present, Renren Video has the largest number of overseas MCN agencies in China, covering more than 120 million fans abroad. If it can proceed according to the plan, Renren Video can avoid the fierce domestic video platform competition and move the main battlefield overseas, which is indeed a good business.
Reviewing Renren Video’s financing process, famous capitals such as Innovation Works, Xiaomi, Baidu, SAIF entered the game, and Baidu has continuously invested in Series B and Series B+. According to reports, the amount of financing in Series B+ exceeds 100 million yuan, which is considered as capital. Darling.
▲ The investment target of MXC Matcha Fund in 2019 is Renren Film and Television, which has nothing to do with Renren Video
Renren video is really unique. For example, the specially developed “drama waste” column gathers user-made short videos. The system uses the history of users to watch works to intelligently push short videos made with similar works. If you are interested, you can directly jump to the link below the short video Positive film, avoiding the trouble of second search.
For another example, according to Tech Planet’s calculations, Renren Video has significantly improved its competitiveness on the video platform through the “Buy it Now” model of advertising costs, making advertising revenue one of its main income.
▲ Source: Tech Planet
Another major source of income is membership income. Although the content of Renren’s video can be watched for free, the functions of its members are not limited to its own platform. Through external cooperation, the functions of Renren Video members range from catering to wine travel, with multiple coverage, extremely rich functions, and improvedMember’s added value. Even if most people can’t remember to use other rights of members, they will feel that the added value is very high when they buy. The average membership fee of 7 yuan per month for the annual card is negligible.
▲ Renren Video’s membership rights are extremely rich
Renren Video can be regarded as a master of marketing itself, no wonder it will attract the attention of capital. If it can maintain such flexible profitability even after switching to a truly compliant and legal operation method, combined with the construction of the film and television industry chain, Renren Video may be able to revitalize its business and usher in another outbreak.
Will this move to Chongqing be a new starting point for Renren Video? Not necessarily. The only thing that can be determined is that the copyright issue of Renren Video has not been completely resolved. After such a high-profile announcement to go public, Renren Video must go from a hidden corner to the public, and it is bound to face a major change in content.