Major music platforms in rights tussle over Jay Chou's pop songs

Centering around pop singer Jay Chou's songs, a copyright dispute between two Chinese music platforms QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music has hit the headlines in Chinese media.

The legal wrangle ended with a court ruling that ordered three companies affiliated to NetEase Cloud Music to pay Tencent Music Entertainment Group, which operates QQ Music, 850,000 yuan ($121,500) in damages.

Last year, Tencent Music filed a complaint against NetEase Cloud Music for infringing its copyright of Chou's music for profit, with the Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone People's Court in Guangdong province.

In 2015, Chou's record company JVR Music authorized the rights of reproduction, public broadcasting, public performance and public transmission of his songs, including sub-license, to SL, 21st Century Business Herald reported.

The authorization is targeted at digital products - without limits to transmission, media and product types, during the licensing period running from April 2015 to March 2020, according to the agreement.

In 2017, SL licensed the exclusive rights to Jay Chou's music on the Chinese mainland, during the remaining period, to Tencent Music. From April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2018, Tencent Music and Net-Ease Cloud Music signed annual authorization contracts on 808 songs from the music library of JVR Music.

Tencent Music claimed that Net-Ease Cloud Music deliberately produced a pirated digital album of Chou's popular songs after the licensing period, which contained 200 songs, and profited from unauthorized sales to its users on its platforms. Moreover, NetEase Cloud Music had promoted the album to its users through its micro blog, selling it to users, priced at 400 yuan.

According to the court verdict, 6,151 online music users have spent 203,588 yuan in total on the album in question since April 1, 2018.

As of May 10, 2018, the company refunded a total of 184,226 yuan to 6,030 users after the lawsuit.

NetEase said that it made a loss, because its actual sales revenue for the album in question was 19,362 yuan, far less than the refunding.

The court said that as a contracting party in the authorization agreement, NetEase Cloud Music had received a contract expiration reminder email from Tencent Music, as the contract was set to expire on the night of March 31,2018. However, its affiliated companies still encouraged users to download music rather than taking corresponding measures.

Thus NetEase Cloud Music is liable to intentional infringement, the court said.

Yao Huanqing, associate professor at the Law School at Renmin University of China, said that in this lawsuit, the two music platforms were both aware of intellectual property protection.

"Music royalties tend to rise thanks to increasing IP protection in China, a change that is conducive to promoting competition among businesses," Yao said.

Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center showed that as of June 2019, the number of digital music platform users in China accounted for 71.1 percent of the total number of netizens in China.

"China has established a sound internet ecosystem to ensure the income of copyright holders and provide consumers with easier access to music at low cost," he added.

liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/07/2019 page17)