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Chapter 757 750: Breaking into the Music Market (Part 2)

From a rational standpoint, he still felt that this speculation seemed somewhat unlikely to be true.After all, it was as shocking as suddenly hearing that the Great Commander of North America was actually in a romantic relationship with a former commander.

It was an absurdity among absurdities.

"There haven't been any good investment projects recently."

Returning to work, Chen Yiyang felt that the number of investments he made had greatly decreased recently.

Mainly because there weren't any good investment projects.

A lot of the information given in the bargain alerts now was the kind that made small profits as a middleman, with no value in pursuing.

And most of the companies that actively sent information to Chen Yiyang, hoping for his investment, didn't seem very reliable, and their numbers were diminishing too.

"It's become increasingly difficult to start a business these years," Chen Yiyang couldn't help but sigh.

"Mainly because the structures of many business sectors have solidified, making it very hard for outsiders to break in," the assistant, Zhang Meng, agreed from the side.

"We have to go into the territories of those big companies and fight for a share," said Chen Yiyang.

"Boss, do you have an idea?" Zhang Meng looked at Chen Yiyang.

"I have a little, but not much," Chen Yiyang thought for a moment and said, "How about we create a music platform to compete with Tengxu Music?"

The main reason Chen Yiyang wanted to specifically challenge Tengxu Music was that ever since he invested in Li Tiaotiao and skipped their ads,

Tengxu had been crazily chasing after him.

They didn't have the guts to directly blacken Chen Yiyang himself.

But from Yiyang Automobile, Yiyang Flash Sale to Yingkumi, Tengxu's media matrix blackened them one by one.

Which made Chen Yiyang quite annoyed.

He wasn't about to help Wu Changxun with an ad alliance.

But since Tengxu insisted on going against him, then so be it.

There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests.

Chen Yiyang planned to start in the music field and have a showdown with Tengxu.

One reason for choosing the music field is that Chen Yiyang has many connections in the domestic entertainment industry, which could be helpful.

Another reason is that the music field has a large audience, but the interests involved are small.

Even if the two clash fiercely in this field, it wouldn't look too bad.

"Do you think there are any problems in the domestic music field right now?" Chen Yiyang wanted to test Zhang Meng.

"Of course there are problems," Zhang Meng quickly replied, "Despite years of stringent crackdowns on piracy, the vitality of the music field is actually worse than before.

Logically, after emphasizing copyright, the music field should have flourished, and relevant entrepreneurs and practitioners should earn more.

But the reality is, currently the music market industry scale is about less than 500 billion, and the three online digital music platforms take most of the profits.

This makes it hard for new creators to stand out, and while old creators' songs are classic enough, they can't create new ones.

This turns the entire music market into a stagnant pool.

A supposedly content creation field now looks like an antique market.

Major platforms compete to see who has more old songs, not who can nurture new creators.

In this environment, the domestic music field unsurprisingly has a company that has essentially formed a monopoly, Tengxu Music.

And this monopoly has led to a serious consequence,

which is if you want to listen to music, you have to pay.

Tengxu Music has about one hundred million paid members.

These hundred million people truly love music and are willing to pay for it.

Tengxu Music makes a lot of money from these paid users, but this pay-to-listen model prevents many creators' music from reaching the public.

After all, you only get a ten-second preview, and who's to know whether a song is good within those few seconds?

This kind of action essentially pushes a large group of people out of the music field.

Even if there are music enthusiasts among them, due to copyright issues, they only want to listen to old songs.

And although a hundred million people in the country pay to listen to music,

music creators don't earn much.

Because the platforms pay music creators too little. Fifty-two percent of musicians have no income whatsoever.

Only nineteen percent of musicians have annual earnings from royalties exceeding a thousand yuan.

Mid-tier creators can only earn a few hundred yuan per month.

Previously, during the peak era of piracy, music creation wasn't unprofitable.

Although different channel providers suffered meager incomes due to piracy, piracy in turn produced another phenomenon.

Which was, if a singer could perform a decent song, it would immediately spread across Jiangnan and other regions due to piracy.

Although there were no royalties, the high dissemination would garner a lot of commercial performance opportunities for these creators.

As long as they worked hard enough, they could earn a lot in a year.

But after copyright protection, channels were monopolized.

Platforms make money, but the popularity of new songs is reduced, and commercial opportunities are lost.

Why have so many old singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan rushed to the mainland to hold concerts in recent years?

Isn't it because they found out that after all these years, new content creators aren't recognized by the public, lack commercial performance opportunities, while they, the old creators, can still continue to earn?

But facing this situation, platforms not only didn't ease restrictions, they became more aggressive."

Zhang Meng couldn't help but complain, "The other day I wanted to listen to 'Scottish Warriors', and found out I had to pay a copyright fee, but this song is a Scottish folk tune, that existed when Wallace was resisting England and raising an uprising.

Turns out I still have to pay to listen to it now. Is my payment going to Wallace as anti-English funds?"

Chen Yiyang was amused by Zhang Meng's words.

But it's true.

Music copyright has now become an excuse for platform monopolies.

And platforms have realized a truth.

That is, whether there are new content creators is irrelevant to the platforms.

Because old songs are plentiful and cheap enough.

Supporting new artists comes with the risk of failure; buying old song copyrights and only allowing paid listening is a sure win.

From the platform's perspective, it's best if there are no new content creators or singers in the future music field.

Just listening to old songs that the platform owns the copyrights for is enough; the platform can still make money.

And after the original creators of these old songs pass away, the platform can continue to make money from membership fees without cost.

"In the arts community, the wealthy support songs with money, while the poor support the musicians with applause. First demonstrate the talent, then ask for rewards.

Although the entertainment industry is messed up, the field of female-oriented TV dramas has made a lot of money in recent years.

Because these dramas employ a strategy of being time-limited free to build reputation, with members paying for early access, attracting traffic and audiences, and then earning through advertising sponsorships.

This, conversely, has made domestic female-oriented dramas very popular in many areas of Southeast Asia.

This shows that Tengxu knows how to make content creation develop positively.

But when it comes to music.

For some reason, Tengxu completely stops fostering positive development and just plans to lie back and collect money.

This makes it impossible for content creators in the music field to increase their fame and the dissemination of their songs, then profit from commercial performances.

"Then why don't we create a free music listening platform?" Chen Yiyang suggested, "The platform can buy some music copyrights, but the main operational focus should be on supporting new music creators."

"A free music platform?" Zhang Meng listened to Chen Yiyang's words, furrowed his brows, and then couldn't help but say, "Boss, pulling this off would be fine a decade ago because there was still a group of original music creators back then.

But now there are barely any living bands domestically, where to find high-quality content creators to produce music."

"I actually have a solution for that," Chen Yiyang smiled mysteriously and then took out a computer.

"I'll play some music for you, and after you listen, give your opinion."

With that, Chen Yiyang opened Bilibili on the computer and played a music video called 'Monkey King Is Gone.'