Category Archives: copyright

Alibaba acquires online music streaming service Xiami

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Perhaps fittingly, seeing as Xiami was founded by former Alibaba systems engineers, Chinese online giant Alibaba announced on January 11 that it had acquired streaming music juggernaut Xiami. Xiami, known colloquially as the “Spotify of China” is a grey-market service hosting millions of songs and albums, all available for free streaming over the Chinese Internet. The service is available worldwide but from our personal experience, it is much faster in China (off VPN). It is also one of the more problematic services floating around, having never fully verified how all the songs in its service are licensed and how artists and labels are compensated. Writing in China tech blog Technode, Ben Chiang puts forth the theory that the acquisition by Alibaba is Xiami’s tacit acknowledgement of the Chinese online music sphere’s move towards copywritten content and need for a company with Alibaba’s coffers to aid them in the royalty payments. We’re inclined to agree with this sentiment, though as with everything, the proof is in the pudding.

For news of other developments in the China online streaming music sphere, be sure to subscribe to Radar posts and follow us @chinamusicradar on Twitter.

Some news from around the webs….

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There have been a couple of half decent articles on the Chinese music scene kicking around the wires recently. We thought we’d point you to a couple:

First up, Andrew Chin over at City Weekend does a retrospective of big international shows in China in advance of two in two days (Elton John on Friday in Shanghai and Jennifer Lopez in the same venue the following night).

From Wham, to John Denver, to the Rolling Stones to Sonic Youth to Linkin Park to the present day, the article features interviews from Adam Wilkes, Archie Hamilton, Steve Sybesma and John Cappo, it makes a nice trip down memory lane for nostalgia hunters, while demonstrating how far we’ve come.

You can read that one right over HERE.

Disclaimer, the one of the authors of this blog was interviewed for this article.

At a different end of the spectrum, Morgan Short of Smart Beijing and previously of Shanghai based band Boys Climbing Ropes baits Dan Shapiro of The Fever Machine into telling us what he really thinks about the music scene in China. Both of these brohammers have been here for over 5 years and have spent most of that time immersed in the music scene, so the interview is a good one for those of you interested in being in bands here. You can read that little gem HERE.

The final one for today looks in depth at the present and future of music access in China, pointing to the fact that more and more of the big players are introducing options for the consumers to actually pay for content. The model seems to be that streaming will continue to be free, while downloading would cost. The author makes some pretty broad claims without backing anything up. The Chinese consumer has never paid for content before – it’s going to take a pretty significant breakthrough in simplicity or usability to make it happen

Read this one HERE

 

China getting tough on piracy?

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There have been many false dawns and don’t hold your breath, but there is positive news in the fight against piracy in China. According to Chinatechnews, China’s Ministry of Culture have issued a directive that says “irregular and illegal music websites” will be closed down. Websites have until the 10th January to comply with this directive.

We assume this means the end of the MP3 part of Baidu, and several other major players in this space. Hao Ting – one of China’s largest music streaming websites – actually closed doors on December 28th, with speculation rife that the end was due to an inability to obtain legal status for its enormous library of tracks.

We will be watching interestedly to see how this pans out.

WIPO update

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For those that didn’t know, the World Intellectual Property Organization is meeting in Beijing this week. You can find out more about WIPO here.

According to Music Week, the IFPI’s CEO had the following choice words to say at the start of the conference yesterday:

IFPI chief executive Frances Moore told a WIPO conference in Beijing this morning that internet piracy in China is happening on a “devastating scale” and threatening to throttle the potential of the legitimate market.

Moore called on the ISPs to help turn the crisis around. Moore said, “ISPs are uniquely placed to curb online infringement…specifically we need ISPs to take down infringing content that they host, but also to take action to block infringing websites and to help curb piracy over peer-to-peer networks.”

She also pointed out that another “major obstacle” to the music industry in China is the lack of performance rights.

Treading a careful line, which wouldn’t antagonize the host country, Moore praised China’s commitment to helping to promote creative and cultural industries. She added, “China has a long and rich musical tradition. We appreciate the Government’s desire to enforce intellectual property rights effectively and ensure a legal framework that permits rights holders to be fairly rewarded.”

Nothing particularly new or revelationary here. Just thought we would let you know

Tudou and the rule of law…

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Artists struggle to sell any music at all in China. That we understand and those of us in the music industry here work within those parameters. On the other hand, companies generally play by the rules and compensate artists when they use their work. Contrary to this assumption, a story has surfaced online that runs as follows:

  • Tudou (the online video company) uses a track from Maybe Mars band Carsick Cars in a promotional video, sponsored by HP.
  • Friend of the label sees aforementioned video in a Shanghai taxi.  Bear in mind that this is a proper commercial for both Tudou and HP.
  • Maybe Mars, a little miffed, contact Tudou on behalf of their copyrighted material and their band
  • After 3 weeks of asking for not much more than an apology and a promise to consult the copyright holder in the future, Tudou basically tell Maybe Mars to “get bent” and “sue us”

[full story in Chinese HERE]

We are paraphrasing, of course, but the sentiment remains the same. According to Maybe Mars, Tudou were incredibly rude, unapologetic and eventually claimed “we are not music people and we can’t tell if this song is actually one of Carsick Cars or not”.

Not good behavior from an online video sharing service that claims to protect the rights of the creator.  Boo hiss.

(we saw the video 5 minutes ago, but it has already been taken down)