西方藝術家期待改變中國音樂“節(jié)拍”

Once a hotbed of piracy, China’s music market has become so sought after that copyright deals are going for substantially more than a song.

一度充斥盜版的中國音樂市場如今受到熱捧，音樂版權交易的目標已遠不止是一首歌。

But following a flurry of so-called exclusive partnerships between the country’s biggest internet groups and major international record labels, the government has called time on the practice.

但在中國幾大互聯(lián)網(wǎng)集團和主要國際唱片公司之間接連達成所謂的獨家合作關系之后，政府已叫停這一行為。

The regulator’s ire — spurred by rivals griping at Tencent’s stranglehold on the sector — has thrown a spotlight on one of the world’s fastest-growing music markets as an increasingly important opportunity for western artists.

監(jiān)管機構(gòu)的怒火——導火索是競爭對手們抱怨騰訊(Tencent)對該領域的壟斷——讓人們注意到中國這個全球增長最為迅速的音樂市場正成為西方藝術家越來越重要的機遇。

Paid online music is expected to rise 59 per cent this year to Rmb3bn ($455m), according to iResearch, the market research company. Moreover, industry body IFPI says almost all of this is down to streaming putting the country well ahead of every other big market.

據(jù)市場研究公司艾瑞咨詢(iResearch)數(shù)據(jù)顯示，今年在線音樂用戶付費市場規(guī)模預計將增長59%，達到30億元人民幣(合4.55億美元)。此外，行業(yè)機構(gòu)國際唱片業(yè)協(xié)會(IFPI)表示這一切幾乎都歸結(jié)于流媒體讓中國遙遙領先于其他所有大市場。

“I think we’ll start to see international artists wanting to ‘break China’ just as much as they’ve always wanted to ‘break America’,” says Stu Bergen, chief executive for international and global commercial services at Warner Music.

華納音樂(Warner Music)負責國際及全球商業(yè)服務的首席執(zhí)行官斯圖•伯根(Stu Bergen)表示：“我想我們將開始看到國際藝術家想要‘打入中國’，就像他們一直想要‘打入美國’那樣。”

Tencent had a 78 per cent share of the market revenues last year, according to Soochow Security, a Chinese brokerage. That clout and a fat wallet has enabled the group to outbid rivals for distribution agreements with western labels eager to distribute their music in China.

據(jù)中國券商東吳證券(Soochow Security)的數(shù)據(jù)，去年騰訊占該市場收入的78%。這樣的影響力加上充沛的資金，讓該集團能夠打敗競爭對手，與那些渴望將自己的音樂發(fā)行到中國的西方唱片公司達成分銷協(xié)議。

“They bid very high prices, way beyond what they thought they would be able to monetise, just to grab all the content for themselves,” says one investor.China’s National Copyright Administration called for an end to exclusive deals in September, with a view to encouraging greater competition among groups. Duan Yupin, an NCAC official, reiterated that view in the state-backed People’s Daily newspaper, last month: “It’s not normal to give a whole copyright pool exclusively to a single platform.”

一位投資者說：“他們出價非常高，遠超他們預估能獲得的收入，只為了將所有內(nèi)容攥到自己手中。”中國國家版權局在9月份叫停音樂獨家版權交易，以期鼓勵各集團間的競爭。國家版權局官員段玉萍上個月在官方報紙《人民日報》(People’s Daily)上重申了這一觀點：“像中國這樣整個曲庫的獨家授權是不正常的。”

Music labels, however, point out that the “exclusive” tag is a misnomer. The deals, they say, are more akin to the master licensing arrangement common in some emerging markets, whereby copyright is handed to one company which then cross-licences it to other platforms.

但唱片公司指出“獨家”這個詞用得并不恰當。他們表示這些交易更類似于部分新興市場常見的版權總代理安排，即版權是交給一家公司全權代理，然后由它交叉授權給其他平臺。

Warner Music’s Mr Bergen says Tencent is “expected to do sub-licence deals with all potential internet digital music platforms on behalf of our catalogue of artists”, adding that it is a unique arrangement that would “not necessarily be a model that would work in any other market”.

華納音樂的伯根表示，騰訊“應該會代表我們旗下藝術家，與所有潛在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)數(shù)字音樂平臺達成轉(zhuǎn)授權協(xié)議”。他補充說這是一種獨特的交易，這種模式“在其他任何市場上不一定能成功”。

For the Chinese group, which hopes to spin off its music arm next year, having content rights is crucial. “As Tencent Music prepares for an initial public offering, the copyright they hold is the one thing they can tell investors to back up an [expected] high valuation,” notes one industry executive.

騰訊希望明年將音樂部門拆分出去;擁有內(nèi)容版權對騰訊至關重要。一位業(yè)內(nèi)高管表示：“騰訊音樂(Tencent Music)正在準備首次公開發(fā)行(IPO)，他們手上的版權就是他們可以向投資者宣傳的一個賣點，這些版權將支撐起騰訊音樂(預期的)的高估值。”

Rivals are cautiously optimistic on the impact of the regulator’s intervention. The price of distribution rights will continue to rise, says the head of one production house, but “the premium will not be as high as it is now; there will be less of a bubble”.

騰訊的競爭對手們對監(jiān)管機構(gòu)干預的影響持審慎樂觀態(tài)度。一家唱片公司的負責人表示，分銷權的價格將繼續(xù)上漲，不過“加價不會像現(xiàn)在這么高，到時候泡沫會減少”。

Wang Jiang, a music producer and former director at Universal Music in China, says it will lead to a different model. “When label companies sign new copyright contracts in the future they will add more specific clauses, like how to distribute that copyright even if it is an ‘exclusive’ deal.”

前環(huán)球唱片(Universal Music)市場總監(jiān)、音樂制作人王江表示，這將帶來一種不同的模式。“唱片公司未來簽訂新的版權合同時，它們會添加更具體的條款，比如如何分銷版權——即便是‘獨家’授權。”

China’s distorted market is explained in large part by its history. Piracy was rampant across media, from stores selling bootleg DVDs to illegal downloads and streaming. Government intervention through enforcement and fines changed the picture.

中國扭曲的市場在很大程度上是由其歷史造成的。各種介質(zhì)的盜版曾經(jīng)都非常猖獗，商店售賣盜版DVD、網(wǎng)絡上有盜版音樂可下載和在線播放。政府通過執(zhí)法和罰款進行干預，改變了上述局面。

Speaking at a conference in Shenzhen earlier this year, Chia-Chi Li, Tencent’s director of technology transactions, described the clampdown as “probably one of the biggest changes in the market that’s allowed us to be here today”.

騰訊的技術交易負責人黎家齊(Chia-Chi Li)今年早些時候在深圳一次會議上的發(fā)言中稱，這次整頓“可能是該市場最大的變化之一，它讓我們今天來到了這里”。

Listeners have largely segued from unpaid pirated content to unpaid-for, ad-funded streaming. Tencent Music claims 700m monthly active users and says 20m will be paying subscribers by the end of 2017.

聽眾基本上是從未付費的盜版內(nèi)容轉(zhuǎn)到靠廣告贊助的免費流媒體。騰訊音樂宣稱其月活躍用戶達7億，并表示至2017年底付費用戶將達2000萬。

“It’s a huge user base of free services,” shrugs one music analyst.

一位音樂行業(yè)分析師聳聳肩說：“這是一個龐大的免費服務用戶群。”

Despite Tencent’s dominance, it prompted a renaissance for China’s music industry more broadly. Alibaba, the ecommerce group, and Netease Cloud Music, the number two platform, ramped up. Tencent began acquiring and rolling music platforms and bolting them together with its own QQ music platform.

盡管騰訊占據(jù)著統(tǒng)治地位，但它促進了中國音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)的全面復興。電商集團阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和第二大平臺網(wǎng)易云音樂(Netease Cloud Music)也發(fā)力了。騰訊已開始收購和推出眾多音樂平臺，并將它們與自己的QQ音樂(QQ Music)平臺捆綁在一起。

Mathew Daniel, international vice-president at Netease Cloud Music, pinpoints social media’s role in the way the music industry has evolved. “Where China is different — social media is very much a local business and international ones are not available in China so things have to come from the ground up.”

網(wǎng)易云音樂國際副總裁馬修•丹尼爾(Mathew Daniel)認為是社交媒體造就了音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)的發(fā)展軌跡。 “中國的不同之處在于，社交媒體基本上是本土的，國際化社交媒體在中國不能用，所以一切都得從頭開始。”

It is little surprise that the international record labels have every intention of expanding in the country. If China’s market develops and growth proves sustainable, says one player, “I think we are going to see a creative explosion like we saw in the 60s and 70s in the west.”

國際唱片公司強烈想要在中國擴張，這一點不足為奇。一位參與者表示，如果中國市場向前發(fā)展且增長被證明是可持續(xù)的，“我認為我們將看到一場創(chuàng)作大爆發(fā)，就像上世紀六七十年代我們在西方看到的情況那樣”。

Listening by numbers

透過數(shù)據(jù)看音樂市場

Just how big is China’s music market? If you believe the streaming platforms, the numbers are huge. Tencent claims 700m users and Netease 400m.

中國音樂市場到底有多大?如果你相信流媒體平臺的說法，那么這個數(shù)字是巨大的。騰訊宣稱有7億用戶，網(wǎng)易宣稱有4億。

Those numbers far outstrip the official figure of 503m at the end of 2016 and demonstrate what analyst Mark Mulligan dubs “an absolutely huge amount of overlap”.

這些數(shù)字遠遠超過了2016年底5.03億的官方數(shù)字，也展示了分析師馬克•馬利根(Mark Mulligan)所稱的“絕對龐大的重疊”。

Mr Mulligan, of UK-based music research consultancy Midea Research, says using the numbers given out by platforms implies that at least three-quarters of the Chinese population are active users, even though certain regions lack the mobile data services needed to stream.

英國音樂研究咨詢機構(gòu)Midea Research的馬利根表示，如果采用各平臺發(fā)布的數(shù)字，就意味著至少有四分之三的中國人是活躍用戶——盡管某些地區(qū)缺乏流媒體播放所需要的移動數(shù)據(jù)服務。

But if Tencent follows through on plans to list its music unit, it will be forced to shed some light on numbers — and specifically numbers of paying subscribers, which will be key when it comes to valuing the company.

但如果騰訊將音樂部門上市的計劃推進下去，它就不得不公布一些數(shù)據(jù)，尤其是付費用戶的數(shù)據(jù)，這在上市公司估值時將是個關鍵指標。

The 15m paying subscribers claimed by Tencent puts in behind only Spotify and Apple Music but, says Mr Mulligan, that is by adding those on its various platforms: QQ Music, KuGou and KuWo. Unifying the numbers ahead of listing will significantly whittle that back, he says.

騰訊聲稱擁有1500萬付費用戶，僅落后Spotify和蘋果音樂(Apple Music)，但馬利根表示這計入了QQ音樂、酷狗(KuGou)和酷我(KuWo)等多個平臺的用戶。他表示上市前對數(shù)據(jù)進行合并后，總數(shù)將大大縮水。

“A lot of people will just disappear because you get a lot of inertia, people who just keep paying their bills. Those are the numbers that will disappear when Tencent starts pulling [them] into a unified platform,” he says.

他說：“很多人會消失，因為很多用戶并不活躍，他們只是一直支付賬單。當騰訊開始將(他們)歸入一個統(tǒng)一平臺時，這些用戶量將蒸發(fā)。”

There are also questions over what constitutes a subscriber: just those actively streaming music on a monthly basis, or also people who are occasional users of other services, such as tipping karaoke livestreamers.

付費用戶的構(gòu)成也存在疑問：是只限定于那些在線聽歌的月活用戶，還是也包括偶爾使用其他服務——如打賞直播唱歌播主——的用戶。

Netease, which goes for an edgier clientele with electronic dance music and hip-hop, claims the crown of fastest-growing service, with monthly active users rising 44 per cent in the year to June.

網(wǎng)易以電子舞曲和嘻哈音樂吸引較為前衛(wèi)的用戶，該公司摘得增長最快服務的桂冠，在截至6月份的一年里其月活用戶增長了44%。