At the Rio Olympic Games held in August, a number of reporting armies of live broadcast platforms appeared. Such as welcoming guests, pepper and so on. I have interviewed Phelps, diving couple Kai He and other famous actors through live broadcast many times, and for a while, I have overshadowed the trend of traditional TV stations and video websites.
However, it should be noted that the Internet companies that really have the right to broadcast live events are Tencent and Ali. When the live broadcast platform grew wildly, issues such as copyright and infringement were once again selectively ignored by "entrepreneurs".
Why are there frequent infringement incidents in live broadcast of sports events?
Tencent and Ali spent a lot of money on the live broadcast of the Olympic Games.
Because CCTV had no copyright distribution measures in the 20 16 European Cup, the video platform was once ready to lose the right to broadcast the Olympic Games online. But on July 20th, CCTV suddenly decided to distribute the rights to broadcast the Rio Olympic Games online. According to media reports, the copyright asking price of this non-exclusive new Olympic media broadcast half an hour later than the synchronous live broadcast is 654.38 billion yuan. Tencent and Ali finally got the right to webcast, so Tencent Video and Youku Tudou were able to provide users with webcasts during the Olympic Games.
The copyright won by 654.38 billion yuan did not bring particularly obvious Olympic dividends to Tencent and Ali. On the contrary, video websites without copyright began to make their own moves. Various video websites and live broadcast platforms have adopted various routes and even formed a larger communication matrix. For example, Sina launched the "Social Olympics", and Weibo, portal, live broadcast, second shot and other channels formed an important matrix for the production and distribution of Sina Olympic content.
"At first glance, Tencent and Ali seem to have become big heads, and there is no difference between 1 100 million." According to industry insiders, in the past, many TV stations that didn't get an interview certificate would mostly let reporters enter the stadium as spectators, record or play some game clips and create news. Now the live broadcast platform can enter the low-cost live broadcast of the stadium with a mobile phone, and it is full-time, real-time, plus commentary. In fact, the boundary between news connection and live broadcast has become blurred through the Internet, but there are strong copyright concerns hidden in it.
Tan Min, a media person, pointed out: If a live broadcast car and several reporters were standing in the stands, the TV station would have taken action. It is because of the respect for copyright that there is no intrusion. At the same time, Tan Min also believes that the real live broadcast should pay attention to the location. Only shooting from the best perspective can give users the best live broadcast experience, which is one of the reasons why the live broadcast copyright is expensive.
In the era of webcasting, with the hat of * * * enjoying free and national live broadcast, the live broadcast platform and various anchors have long been involved, ignoring copyright. This state has lasted for a long time, especially the live broadcast of games.
Live melee Jianghu
There is a joke circulating on the Internet: "Live broadcast originated from programs, flourished in network celebrities, flourished in stars, declined in advertisements, and was destroyed in pornography." Since the emergence of the webcast industry, there have been indecent videos such as "forgetting to turn off the camera to change clothes in public", "deliberately exposing private parts" and "well-known anchors urging female anchors to undress". In the face of increasingly fierce platform competition today, these actions have gradually faded out of public view because of little effect.
According to relevant industry data, since 20 15, the number of webcasting platforms in China has exceeded 200. Among them, the webcast market is 9 billion, covering 200 million users. Large-scale live broadcast platforms have more than 4 million simultaneous online users and more than 3,000 live broadcast rooms. According to the data of the Ministry of Culture, the number of webcasting enterprises in China kept increasing in 20 16, and one or two enterprises entered the industry almost every week.
At the same time, burning money has also become the key word of live broadcast. According to media reports, Tiger Tooth Live lost 387 million yuan in 20 15 years, Dragon Ball Live lost 52120,000 yuan, and Betta TV is also burning money. Such fierce competition and money-burning wars have also made every live broadcast platform try its best to find high-quality resources, and the copyright edge ball has also been extremely fierce.
Taking the initial e-sports live broadcast as an example, the e-sports live broadcast of all major platforms is shrouded in the suspicion of infringement. In May this year, a year-long infringement case in Yu Dou was finally exposed. The court of second instance made a judgment of "rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment". Yu Dou needs to compensate Yaoyu Company for its economic loss of 6,543,800 yuan and reasonable expenses for rights protection of 6,543,800 yuan. At the same time, it should publish a statement in a prominent position on the homepage of Yu Dou website to eliminate the adverse effects.
This event, called "the first case of infringement of live broadcast of e-sports events", is not complicated. Yaoyu Company and Perfect World, the game agent operator, jointly created the 20 15 DOTA2 Asian Invitational Tournament, and Yaoyu Company won the exclusive video broadcast right of the tournament in Chinese mainland. Without authorization, the anchor of Betta Company intercepts the game screen through the client spectator mode, and provides a commentary on the real-time live broadcast of the game.
"Many early network celebrity anchors did this. In the eyes of most viewers, such an explanation belongs to a second creation and becomes a brand-new cultural and creative product. " Insiders pointed out that the top executives of some live broadcast platforms often think that it is not infringement for platform anchors to add their own comments and share them with fans on the basis of legally watching the perfect world push game screen from the perspective of an ordinary spectator. In fact, this is a word game, and you can watch the game legally. Doesn't mean you can broadcast live without authorization.
Tan Min even made an analogy and inferred that if you buy a movie ticket, you can go to the cinema. Is it possible for the anchor to broadcast the movie while explaining? "Unauthorized movies with barrage are also pirated, and so are live broadcasts like this."
From simple infringement to high imitation cottage
However, in the judicial field, there is still no exact definition of this unauthorized live broadcast of sports events. For example, in the case of Yu Dou's infringement, the People's Court of Pudong New Area in Shanghai and the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court both found that Betta Company constituted unfair competition, not copyright infringement.
In last year's Sina v. Phoenix. Com case, Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court once held that the pictures broadcast by sports events belong to works in the sense of copyright law. But we should know that in 2003, the State Sports General Administration listed e-sports as the 99th official sports event.
At the "Seminar on Intellectual Property Protection of E-sports Events" hosted by Internet Association of China Mediation Center on August 27th, dozens of judges and professionals engaged in intellectual property trials also expressed their opinions on the intellectual property protection of e-sports live broadcast and e-sports games. However, the participating experts have no differences on the nature of the illegal acts of live broadcast piracy of sports events, but they have different views on the protection methods. "Obviously, this * * * agreement has actually shelved the dispute." Game anchor Mei Ying said.
However, this kind of live broadcast form of simply explaining or intercepting pictures is becoming less and less attractive with the intensification of competition in live broadcast platforms. On the contrary, the live broadcast platform began to appear three routes in copyright.
One is to buy the copyright of live programs in large quantities, or to form copyright barriers through technical barriers, so as to improve the entry threshold of the whole industry and eliminate bad money. For example, pepper live broadcast opens VR channel; Let's watch the stars introduce the exclusive variety of MBC, one of the three major TV stations in Korea, and brush Korean powder with pure Korean Wave.
The second is to use the original exclusive live broadcast to accumulate user stickiness. For example, quiet distance, a live broadcast ace, was the gold medal host of Super Interview, a top variety show continuously broadcast by 16. After the publication stopped at the beginning of the year, Jing Li entered the field of live broadcast alone, continuing his previous major in variety shows. Different from other network celebrity anchors, he is determined not to fight alone, but frequently invites celebrities such as Mary and Fu as guests to show the variety form of Super Interview again in the live broadcast. In Battle Flag TV, its original live broadcast program "The Lying Man" has been broadcast for four seasons since it was launched in May 20 15, and has accumulated more than 60 million viewing data. Its characteristic is that by introducing the number of traditional variety shows and the gag of entertainment stars, the e-sports competition, once a small group, has become a reality show.
The third is that some high-quality live programs encounter "shanzhai". In June, Zhanqi TV publicly stated that the new program of Panda Mutual Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd. seriously copied the original program "Lying Man" of Zhanqi. Although the incident has not been finalized, it has also opened the lid for the current live broadcast platform to learn from or copy the excellent live broadcast programs of peers or traditional media when it starts to independently create live broadcast programs.
"This is also an inevitable process in the process of the industry from mud and sand to the gradual emergence of the survival of the fittest." Tan Min said, "In the past, TV stations had a story of' one copying Hong Kong and Taiwan and the other copying the whole country'. This level of shanzhai may really make the live broadcast content better and more differentiated. After all, no one wants to see a remake with a different face and slightly different acting skills. "