Restart life

Chapter 541 0529 [President Chen's actions are once again incomprehensible]

Chen Guiliang's speech at Peking University's graduation ceremony quickly sparked a small-scale online discussion.

Two days later, the Chinese Department of Peking University held a separate graduation ceremony and invited Ms. Lu (an alumna), the director of the commentary department of People's Daily, to give a speech.

Although Director Lu's speech content was different, its core theme was very similar to Chen Guiliang's. Moreover, it was more artistic and emotional, with particularly brilliant word choice and sentence structure.

Just a few quotes:

"My only fear is that you no longer believe—you no longer believe that rules can overcome unspoken rules, that academia is different from officialdom, that scholarship is not equal to power politics, and that integrity is far superior to sycophancy."

"In this age of doubt, we still need faith."

"Where you stand is your China; as you are, so is China; whatever you are, so is China; if you have light, China will not be dark."

A student from the Chinese Department of Peking University copied the entire long Weibo post and tagged Chen Guiliang.

Chen Guiliang casually forwarded and liked the post, commenting, "Let's encourage each other."

The content of their speeches was put together for discussion by netizens, quickly igniting a frenzy across the internet.

Not only are ordinary netizens discussing it, but more and more influential figures are joining the discussion, and it has even attracted many elites who don't usually post much.

Because both Chen Guiliang and Director Lu mentioned the word "doubt" multiple times during their speeches, some people have called this the "age of doubt," a view that has gained widespread acceptance among netizens.

The keyword "the age of skepticism" quickly became a trending topic on several major Weibo platforms.

The reason it's so popular is because everyone can relate to it.

Too many negative news stories have made people doubt everything around them, believing that whatever they see or hear is fake.

"Your and Director Lu's Weibo posts are getting tons of traffic right now." Xie Yang lay back in his chair, spinning around, talking to his boss in a completely unserious manner.

Chen Guiliang disliked him, so he grabbed the back of the chair and spun him around forcefully.

Xie Yang immediately lifted both feet off the ground, thoroughly enjoying the spinning sensation, and said, "Continue, continue!"

childish.

Chen Guiliang dragged over a chair and sat down: "Things have gotten out of hand; the People's Daily even published an editorial about it."

Xie Yang stopped spinning on his toes and said with a smile, "That's great. Although you criticized the ugliness of the present during your speech, the overall tone was positive and uplifting. I also read the editorial in People's Daily, which highly praised you."

Chen Guiliang sighed, "Alas, I originally wanted to keep a low profile."

"He's just showing off again!" Xie Yang said disdainfully.

As the two were chatting, Chen Guiliang received a WeChat message: "The contract with YG has been signed."

Chen Guiliang replied, "Let's move on to the next one."

……

In late June and early July, at Chen Guiliang's behest, Byte Music's negotiation team made some price concessions and signed contracts with several major South Korean entertainment companies.

The exclusive rights can't be delayed any longer. If we wait until Psy's "Gangnam Style" becomes a huge hit, all the companies in South Korea will demand exorbitant prices.

They all follow a "3+2" five-year model, with a guaranteed minimum payment plus profit sharing.

SM Entertainment's guaranteed minimum payment is $180 million per year, with a 20% revenue share. Its roster includes Girls' Generation, TVXQ, Super Junior, and others.

YG Entertainment's guaranteed minimum payment is $120 million per year, with a revenue share of 18%. Their artists include Big Bang, Psy, and 2NE1.

JYP Entertainment has a guaranteed minimum investment of $90 and a revenue share of 18%. Their artists include Wonder Girls and 2PM.

In addition, there are many other small and medium-sized companies such as CUBE and FNC, whose package prices are very, very cheap.

Just one week after signing with YG, PSY's "PSY 6 Armor Part.1" was released.

This music album, which includes "Gangnam Style," initially only achieved moderately good results; it didn't become an instant global sensation. Otherwise, given the peculiar nature of Korean culture, who knows what kind of trouble they might have caused.

……

Tencent.

Wu Shaoyi, General Manager of QQ Music's Business Development Department, came to the office of Tencent Vice President Tang Daosheng: "This is a business notification letter we just received. We've received six in less than two months. At first, it was from Taiwanese companies like Foremost, and now Korean companies have also sent letters. ByteDance has quietly established Byte Music and is aggressively acquiring exclusive online music copyrights."

Tang Daosheng carefully read through the six notification letters, then frowned and said, "Why are you only reporting now?"

Wu Shaoyi explained, "ByteDance's behavior is simply throwing money down the drain, so we didn't take it seriously at first. Even now, I still don't understand what ByteDance Music is trying to do."

Tang Daosheng speculated, "Could it be that the government is going to tighten its regulation of online music copyrights?"

Wu Shaoyi shook his head: "I've asked many friends, and there's absolutely no such rumor. If the goal was to increase oversight, I would have received word of it long ago."

Tang Daosheng remained silent, burying his head in carefully reading the business notices.

The content itself isn't very interesting; it's just a notification from the record company that they've sold the exclusive rights to ByteDance Music. This involves copyrights that QQ Music had already purchased (not exclusive), and those contracts will automatically expire and not be renewed.

For example, QQ Music signed a two-year contract for the non-exclusive rights to Girls' Generation's songs, which still has more than half a year left before the contract expires. After that, the contract cannot be renewed, and the relevant songs must be removed from QQ Music. If Tencent continues to use them, the record company will sue them.

The lawsuit has virtually no deterrent effect. Even if Tencent loses the case, the amount of money it has to pay is negligible, far less than the profits Tencent gains as a result.

When ringback tones were popular, record companies would frequently sue for piracy. Now that the ringback tones business has declined, record companies are even too lazy to sue anymore.

"Go back and continue your research, ask around, and confirm whether the regulatory policies really won't be tightened," Tang Daosheng said.

Wu Shaoyi said, "Okay, I'll go and study it some more."

Tang Daosheng pondered the six letters alone for a long time, but still couldn't help but dial the number of Xiao Ma's secretary: "I have work to report to the chairman."

The next day.

When Tang Daosheng met Xiao Ma, he took out six notification letters and explained the details in detail.

Little Ma was also completely baffled.

Tang Daosheng said, "If other companies did this, I wouldn't care at all. But Chen Guiliang is too mysterious; I can't ignore his every move. I suspect he's gambling!"

"What are we betting on?" Little Ma asked.

Tang Daosheng said, "I bet that within the next year or two, the government will take action to rectify the chaos in online music copyright, just as it did with film and television copyright."

Little Ma shook his head: "The reason the government is cracking down on film and television copyrights is because many of these copyrights are controlled by television stations and film studios. These television stations and film studios are state-owned, and they have the channels and power to push for policy changes. But in the music copyright sector, state-owned record companies have long been dead, and no one is pushing for this."

Tang Daosheng said, "So I think he's gambling. If there's the power to push it forward, it's not gambling anymore. Should we follow suit?"

Little Ma asked, "What's the situation with our music copyrights?"

Tang Daosheng said, "I didn't sign exclusive contracts with any record company. I only signed non-exclusive contracts with certain singers or songs. The longest contract term was only two years, and some songs or singers were only signed for one year."

Tencent's approach to content creation is much more appealing than Baidu's. QQ Music has indeed signed numerous non-exclusive copyrighted songs. However, while signing copyrighted tracks, it doesn't prevent users from uploading pirated versions.

Even the same song can be found in both official and pirated versions on QQ Music.

Brother Ma stared at the six letters for a long time, completely baffled. He didn't believe Chen Guiliang would gamble on policy like this, but he couldn't understand why Chen Guiliang would do it.

As Tang Daosheng said, if other companies had tried this tactic, it wouldn't have attracted any attention at all; on the contrary, it would have been ridiculed.

But who dares to laugh at Chen Guiliang?

Now, no matter what Chen Guiliang does, people's first reaction isn't to laugh, but to quickly investigate the specifics. Even if they can't figure it out, they'll feel that there's something they haven't thought through.

In the end, all Little Ma could do was instruct: "Keep a close eye on this matter."

……

Taiwan.

JVR Music, Inc.

Liao Le'an, the copyright acquisition representative of ByteDance Music, came to Jay Chou's office for the third time: "Mr. Jay, these are copies of the exclusive contracts we signed with other companies. Including the three major entertainment companies in South Korea, we have acquired their music online copyrights in mainland China."

Jay Chou silently flipped through those contracts.

Liao Le'an continued, "We only want the online audio copyrights; we won't touch the online video copyrights because we know they are one of your company's stable sources of revenue. Mr. Zhou should be aware of the situation in mainland China; our company is definitely not acting solely for commercial purposes. Mr. Zhou should have met our General Manager Chen, right?"

"I've met him, he's very young," Jay Chou nodded.

Liao Le'an began to elaborate, even taking out his phone to play a song: "Jay Chou may not know, but our CEO Chen is a big music lover, and he's also a music creator. I'm playing 'The Wind Rises,' a song written and composed by CEO Chen, for Jay Chou."

Jay Chou listened attentively and asked, "Is Mr. Chen really the lyricist and composer of this song?"

“Absolutely true,” Liao Le’an said. “When Mr. Chen first started his business, he was working on a social networking site called Xiaonei.com. This song is Xiaonei.com’s theme song, and it has become a part of the youthful memories of countless young people in mainland China.”

Jay Chou continued looking at the photocopies of the contracts.

Liao Le'an said, "President Chen has always wanted to promote the standardization of music copyright in mainland China. This acquisition of copyrights at great risk is actually just a prelude. The ultimate goal is to persuade relevant departments to strengthen copyright supervision. If successful, it will be of great benefit to all musicians. And Jay Chou's future benefits will be far more than what is stated in the contract."

Jay Chou said, "An annual guaranteed amount of 800 million is still too little."

"What do you think is a suitable amount, Mr. Zhou?" Liao Le'an asked.

“1800 million,” Jay Chou said.

Liao Le'an said, "SM has many singers and groups such as Girls' Generation and TVXQ. Their annual guaranteed minimum is only US$180 million, which is equivalent to RMB 1140 million."

Jay Chou said, "I have even more fans."

Liao Le'an said, "The guaranteed annual amount is 1200 million. If Jay Chou holds a concert in mainland China, we will automatically obtain the online live streaming rights."

“Don’t you only buy online audio copyrights?” Jay Chou asked.

Liao Le'an said, "Your asking price is too high, so of course we have to add terms. As for the online live streaming rights of your concert, we can distribute them to other video websites. Jay Chou should know that even if we do it this way, we will still be operating at a pure loss."

After more than half a month of haggling, the two sides finally reached a deal for 1480 million yuan.

Besides Jay Chou's songs, there are also singers and groups under his label such as Nan Quan Mama.

(End of this chapter)