Chinese Songwriters Are Mad and They Ain't Going To Take It Anymore

[nicholasg980]

A fair amount of fuss was made regarding Music Copyright Society of
China's (MCSC) announcement that it had reached an licensing agreement
with Baidu, China's top online infringer of copyrights. MCSC even
announced that they had received their first royalty payment from
China's largest search engine (Yes, Baidu is like merging Google with
the old Napster). Finally, a major breakthrough that should please
everyone, especially Chinese songwriters, right?

Not quite. On the same day MCSC made their announcement, famous
chinese songwriter and producer Xiaosong Gao posted an open letter on
his sina blog titled "A letter to my colleagues of the Chinese
Songwriters Copyright Alliance." He was joined by several songwriters
such as Xiao Ke and Yadong Zhang in launching the Chinese Songwriters
Copyright Alliance (CSCA) a couple of days earlier to fight the
egregious copyright infringement by Baidu and negotiate on behalf of
songwriters not represented by MCSC. Within days, CSCA soon attracted
hundreds of new members.

Xiaosong Gao established MaiTian Music, which used to be China's
largest record label, and now lives in the Los Angeles where he works
in film and music sector. He also served as Director of Entertainment
for SOHU.com, one of the most popular portals in China. So Gao
certainly has a stake in what happens in China on the copyright front,
the credibility to speak out and understanding of China's online
market.

Gao notes in his open letter that CSCA's first step will be
negotiating a comprehensive agreement with Baidu and assuring
enforcement. "It should be complete legalization rather than
meaninglessly building up a legal music platform while the large
amount of pirated links remain available on Baidu's MP3 channel. Baidu
MP3 channel is where pirate music sites get their site traffic by
simply paying for Baidu advertising, then resell that traffic to
pornographic sites or other counterfeit goods services. It gives me
such pain knowing this dirty food chain is actually fed with the most
beautiful music!"

While I was not aware of the link between pirate music sites and porn,
Baidu's MP3 search page is perhaps the most flagrant form of open
piracy I've ever seen. And this from Google's equivalent in China - in
other words, not just some website, but THE website that all Chinese
surfers use. I was outraged to see that MP3 search page still online
today, even after the MCSC agreement and launch of Baidu's 'legal'
music service Ting. What's the use of a legal music service if the
pirate service is just a click away on the same site!

Gao has acknowledged the first steps forward made by MCSC and Baidu in
creating a legal environment for music. But, he has also noted that
MCSC only represents a small amount of songwriters. Nor is the Baidu-
MCSC agreement nearly comprehensive enough as it only deals with
royalties owed moving forward, not addressing royalties or
compensation for past activities on the site. To make matters worse,
not only are most Chinese songwriters not member of MCSC, but those
that are have been given no information as to the terms of the Baidu-
MCSC agreement.

This later point is significant. If there is one thing truly lacking
in China's music industry, it is transparency. Artists and labels
continually complain that they often have no idea whether the numbers
they are given by mobile carriers are true, that is when they get
reporting. This is not insignificant as there has been a rash of
arrests at China Mobile for fraud and embezzlement, particularly in
the music department. Considering Baidu's long history of flouting
copyright, songwriters are right to be suspicious of any backroom deal
struck.

But the issue of transparency goes beyond just Baidu. Yan Xiaohong,
deputy director of the National Copyright Administration, noted at a
meeting of the Chinese Movie Copyright Association that "the
distribution of royalties by collective management organizations
should be fair and transparent," to the point where the organization
should be accountable to each individual member.

The fact is that if there were trust in institutions such as MCSC,
songwriters wouldn't feel the need to form another organization to
represent their rights. They would just rush to sign with MCSC and
collect their check, right? But might they actually be implicitly
signing a poison deal with Baidu by joining MCSC?

Gao goes on to express his anger that songwriters are the most
vulnerable, neglected and silent group in the music industry while
suffering the most by piracy. "No one ever paid any attention to
protect our rights as 99% of our income was stolen. Facing the
situation in Mainland China where the market is dominated by 98% of
pirated CDs, musicians are struggling to survive on the remaining 2%
that is the legitimate market."

End of story? Not quite. An April 19th article in people.com.cn
reported that CSCA co-founder Xiao Ke was complaining that Baidu was
ignoring CSCA, not having responded to their April 6th open letter to
Baidu outlining four basic principles (takedown, apologize, compensate
and common development) to advancing negotiation. Yet, Xiaosong Gao
was interviewed the next day in the same outlet praising Baidu "for
the large degree of improvement" it had done in recognizing the piracy
issue and compensating songwriters. The title of the interview?
"Xiaosong Gao's music "crusade" against Baidu harvest results:
receives upfront royalty". And so, the soap opera that is China's
music industry goes on.

By Eric de Fontenay
this article was co-written with Xingyue Peng