Tencent Music Entertainment wins copyright suit over Jay Chou songs
Chinese online music platform, Tencent Music Entertainment, has won a copyright infringement case against a competitor, NetEase Cloud Music, over the unlicensed use of an artist’s songs.
As reported by Digital Music News yesterday, November 11, NetEase has been ordered to pay Tencent 850,000 yuan ($121,200) for hosting nearly 180 unlicensed songs by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou.
According to the report, in 2015 NetEase licensed more than 800 of Chou’s songs for 8.7 million, which gave the platform the right to host the songs for a year.
In 2017, this increased, and the company paid 18 million yuan for the same licensing deal.
In its lawsuit, Tencent had alleged that NetEase continued to use the songs after the 2017 licensing deal ended.
According to Digital Music News, the deal lapsed because Tencent is implementing a new policy which puts its premium catalogue behind a paywall, in the hope that users will upgrade their accounts.
In January of this year, China’s antitrust authority, the State Administration of Market Regulation, launched a probe into the Tencent’s dealings with music labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music.
Universal, Sony and Warner have all sold exclusive rights to a number of their music catalogues to Tencent Music, which in turn licenses to Chinese companies.
The authority launched an antitrust investigation into this practice after the Chinese companies complained that Tencent charges them unfairly, hiking licencing fees above what they would pay if they licenced the music directly from the labels.
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