Netease founder Ding Lei: Internet downloading music should support cross-platform use

Ding Lei believes that after 10 years of "cold winter", with the efforts of the government and the industry to legalize, the market has regained new vitality, and musicians have finally reached the era when "making music can make money", but neither musicians nor users have benefited. He said that if the industry joins hands to build a national music big data platform, musicians, users and music platforms will all benefit.

Original title: Netease founder Ding Lei talks about online music copyright protection, online downloading of music should support cross-platform use.

At the recently held China Internet Copyright Protection Conference, Netease founder and CEO Ding Lei delivered a speech on behalf of Netease Cloud Music with the theme of "Feelings Achieve Big Dreams, Openness Creates New Possibilities" The wonderful speech was unanimously praised.

Ding Lei is a veteran music fan. He believes that after 10 years of "cold winter", with the efforts of the government and the industry to legalize, the market has regained new vitality, and musicians have finally reached the era when "making music can make money."

As a project carried out because of Ding Lei's feelings and interests, Netease Cloud Music has accumulated 300 million users in four years and recently completed 750 million yuan in Series A financing. Ding Lei said that this is the first speed in the industry and the positive feedback given to us by the market under the two competitive dimensions of product innovation and user experience. However, the current trend of copyright competition for digital music in China is puzzling. It seems that they have entered the strange circle of giants bidding up exclusive copyright fees and losing money to make money. Ding Lei believes that exclusive copyright has even replaced product innovation and user experience, becoming the main competitive barrier in the industry.

Ding Lei believes that neither musicians nor users have benefited. Musicians are the industry's most front-end content contributors, but they are not the biggest beneficiaries of legalization. Not only is it not, it is even a "vulnerable group". According to the "Report on the Living Status of Independent Musicians in China" released by NetEase Cloud Music, less than 5% of independent musicians in China earned an average of more than 10,000 yuan in music last month, and 68% of musicians earned an average monthly income of less than 1000 yuan. Musicians did not enjoy much of the legitimate cake, but nine out of ten were divided by capital operations.

Let's talk about users. Because copyrights are scattered, users now have to download a bunch of music applications and pay several times more if they want to listen to songs by different singers. For users, this is not just a matter of making the operation troublesome, but a matter of not being happy when paying for it. Music is inherently meant to serve the public, and the biggest responsibility of the music platform is to make listening to music easier and more enjoyable. However, listening to music has now become complicated and unreasonable.

How to solve this dilemma? Ding Lei said that if the industry joins hands to establish a national music big data platform, musicians, users and music platforms will all benefit.

Ding Lei said with evidence that from the "Operation Jianwang", we have seen the ability and courage of government departments to regulate the digital music market. Under the supervision of government departments, the music industry can establish a national digital music big data platform and jointly implement the single authorization and per-download billing model.

In this way, on the one hand, the government can comprehensively supervise music platform usage data, taxation and industry dynamics; on the other hand, the industry can also reduce the vicious competition of copyright enclosure and record companies choosing sides. Genuine license fees will be reduced back to a rational level, and the focus of industry competition will return to products and user experience.

The establishment of a big data platform can not only inspire musicians to create more excellent works, but also improve the overall level of the Chinese music industry. It is also conducive to increasing transparency and effectively restricting various piracy behaviors.

At present, what users in China pay for is not the complete copyright of music-on some mainstream apps, songs after paying copyright fees still cannot be downloaded to the terminal, and listening to songs can only be done on specific apps.

Ding Lei suggested that downloading music online should support cross-platform use. He said that using digital music across platforms is a mainstream practice around the world. Netease Cloud Music's philosophy is to make content rather than occupy resources, and hopes to impress users with innovation and heart. Bring true value to users by doing things that others have not done, or that others have done but haven't done well. For example, through product design and personalized song lists recommended based on unique algorithms, Netease Cloud Music has created a new hosting model for digital music.

Currently, there are more than 400 million song lists on Netease's platform, of which the average daily number of song lists created by users reaches 620,000. These song lists give users great convenience and make the process of listening to songs more enjoyable. Some users even commented that "Cloud Music is a product that understands you better than girlfriends." The positive effects of this product stickiness and reputation are also reflected in users 'willingness to pay high prices. This is an example of how Netease Cloud Music has formed unique competitiveness through innovation and experience in the past four years.

A mature music ecosystem can start with copyright, but cannot end with copyright. Ding Lei suggested that the music industry should not stop at resource enclosure, but upgrade our competition to industrial exploration with greater imagination space. Music platforms can earn commercial income through copyright protection, and can also explore the commercial value of music itself through innovation. Through technological innovation models, users can pay for the music itself.

Editor: vian