Chapter 395

Just as media reports were detailing the two sides' dispute over content copyright, Bilibili suddenly uploaded various European and American TV series from Youku and other pirated video platforms.

Like this year's hit "Pacific Ocean" and the highly acclaimed "Breaking Bad" from the past two years, they were copied onto Bilibili.

They were available for free viewing, with no pre-roll ads, no membership required, full episodes accessible, though the video quality was not clear.

After all, such a massive volume of content requires substantial bandwidth costs.

Going after others also comes at a cost.

The incident made the Today Headline news and was precisely pushed to many Wangyi, leveraging interactivity to trigger social fission.

It spread exactly as word-of-mouth does—one person tells ten, ten tell a hundred.

Not only did Today Headline have this function, but Bilibili did too.

Both platforms belonged to new media platforms and possessed real-time social dissemination features—for example, Bilibili had danmu and comment functions.

Just one danmu comment could make many people see it—that was social fission.

No deliberate promotion was needed; letting Wangyi spread it through social fission was enough, and it was fast—the copied content quickly surpassed ten thousand views.

A flood of free-riding viewers flooded in, calling Bilibili "ethical"!

The people on Bilibili were mostly free-riding users, predominantly young.

Bilibili's upload was not an official one, nor did it open a separate page channel—it was uploaded via forged Up Master accounts.

Searching keywords was enough to find them; no extra effort was needed.

After all, this wasn't anything honorable—it was just an eye for an eye.

Simultaneously with Bilibili's upload of large volumes of European and American TV series, Youku and other video platforms immediately knew.

Youku Tudou CEO Gu Yongqiang immediately notified Bilibili of its infringement and ordered it to delete the infringing content.

Zhang Nan mimicked their behavior, saying "okay okay okay," yet took no action whatsoever.

Whatever these people had done to her, she did the same to them.

This dismissive attitude infuriated Gu Yongqiang and others—they knew these European and American TV series had been bought with real Silver.

Now they were being watched for free on Bilibili, meaning a large number of American drama viewers were gathering there.

After all, your platform required membership, some content required separate purchase, and even non-members faced endless ads—Bilibili offered free access with no ads at all.

The video quality wasn't clear, but that was tolerable.

Why not free-ride if you can? You're not rich enough to burn money.

In this era, the battles among major internet companies had given Wangyi many benefits—subsidies, red packets, free free-riding galore.

These past few years were arguably the happiest for Wangyi; after this period, once the internet landscape stabilized, such treatment would vanish.

Fundamentally, it had sealed off the path for entrepreneurs—without challengers, the big companies could sleep soundly.

What did the big companies fear most? They feared innovation—if you innovated, they had to throw vast sums of money—not just investments, but endless trial-and-error, terrified you'd rise and challenge their position.

ByteDance was the best example.

Later, as entrepreneurship became harder and the market entered a phase of stock competition, it seemed the big companies' businesses shrank with no growth—but their profits actually increased.

Why? Because the path to innovation was blocked; they no longer needed to throw money around.

They could even sleep peacefully while laying off employees, securing their core base and earning money lying down—that was the true reality afterward.

Distracted.

After communication with Zhang Nan failed, Gu Yongqiang immediately issued a statement: "Bilibili's video platform has uploaded Youku Tudou's exclusive TV series, severely infringing upon Youku's rights. We will submit litigation materials to court, demanding the infringing company immediately delete the content and compensate for losses."

Just like Zhang Nan's earlier move, this statement served both to warn the opponent and to publicly expose the conflict so everyone would know.

Unsurprisingly, the moment this statement was released, it was rapidly republished and reported by major media outlets, which also explained the context.

It was simply that Youku Tudou had first infringed Chang'e Technology's "Dad Where Are We Going" copyright, and then Chang'e Technology retaliated in kind.

After all, this incident had happened just days ago—it wasn't easily forgotten.

Bilibili then issued a response statement: "Some users have indeed uploaded related content. We have intercepted these uploads multiple times in the backend, but found users repeatedly maliciously uploading using segmented uploads, changing usernames, false titles, etc. Upon discovery or receipt of complaints, we immediately act."

"Opposing piracy is Chang'e Technology's consistent principle. We welcome public supervision to jointly promote healthy industry development."

This was a direct copy of Youku Tudou's earlier response statement, with only a few names changed—all else remained identical.

A Wangyi combined both companies' statements into one image via Photoshop and found 99% similarity, instantly sparking heated discussion among onlookers.

"Holy shit, did Chang'e Technology run out of copywriters? Too lazy to even rewrite—just copy-paste a few words and publish."

"Not much harm, but extremely insulting! Gu Yongqiang must be fuming."

"Principal still can't stop eating shit—he pirated others' content and still has the nerve."

"You're wrong, bro—it was Youku that first pirated 'Dad Where Are We Going,' and then Principal retaliated in kind."

"Support Principal, support Liu Tianxian."

"Where's Liu Tianxian? Your Principal's so angry—why don't you take her back and calm him down?"

"You're a troll—what does this have to do with Liu Tianxian?"

"Yeah, why drag my wife into this? My wife has nothing to do with the Principal."

"You've gone too far." "Just watch the show, eat the popcorn!"

"."

Wangyi loved making random comments—even though this had nothing to do with them, they just loved joining the chaos, watching others fight.

This fight, ironically, boosted Bilibili and Chang'e Video's reputations, drawing continuous traffic—after all, Wangyi loved watching fights.

Media extensively reported the mutual infringements; People's Daily Online and Xinhua News Agency also republished and reported on it.

They merely reported the facts, without taking sides or expressing opinions on who was right or wrong.

Everyone was watching closely—it had become a big deal, since both sides were locked in a standoff: you pirate my content, I copy yours.

They treated copyright law like toilet paper, grinding it underfoot, yet the authorities above remained silent.

If the authorities did nothing, the entire online video industry would descend into chaos—TV dramas and movies would have no protection on the internet.

Pushing the nascent film and television industry back several years would render countless people's efforts futile.

Gu Yongqiang and others had no choice: either sue them, but the results wouldn't come quickly, or take down their version of Dad Where Are We Going, yet they didn't want to compromise.

If this continues, it's mutual harm.

Chang'e Video's ad revenue from Dad Where Are We Going decreased; Youku and other video platforms saw a drop in membership numbers, and their ad revenue decreased as well.

Both sides lost growth, yet expenses kept being paid every day!

Traffic was also split among multiple sources—there was an impact, but not a major one; new users came daily, old users left, it was normal, yet everyone was freeloaders.

Where there were no ads, where there were no memberships, that's where they went to watch.

Dad Where Are We Going had no ads on Youku, but Chang'e Video had pre-roll ads lasting 30 to 60 seconds, so they watched on Youku, not on Chang'e Video.

Western dramas had no ads or memberships on Bilibili, so they went to Bilibili; the netizens were incredibly clever and delighted.

But advertisers weren't satisfied—they had just spent tens of millions, and now their content was pirated, traffic was diverted, causing them massive losses.

Yinhua's PR rep came to Zhang Lidong and asked: "Manager Zhang, this isn't right. You told me you had exclusive rights, so I invested 66 million. Now every other video platform has Dad Where Are We Going—there's insufficient traffic, our product has no visibility. How am I supposed to explain this to Director Chen?"

Director Chen is Chen Qing Shui, CEO of Yinhua Group!

"Calm down, I didn't anticipate this either. We don't want this either—we're victims too!" Zhang Lidong pleaded earnestly.

These were all the advertisers he had brought in, and advertisers were the most vital economic source for internet companies—calling them gold sponsors wasn't an exaggeration.

Look at any internet platform without ads?

"So what's the solution?" The man knew the situation, but since they had suffered losses, Chang'e had to compensate.

Just because you're the victim doesn't mean others will pity you.

"Here's what we'll do: we have a new drama coming out, Let's Get Married, premiering on the 6th. I'll personally arrange for your ads to run on this drama as compensation." Zhang Lidong said.

"Won't this drama get pirated?" they asked.

"This is a CCTV production, co-produced with Yutu. They'd need to be insane to dare pirate it," Zhang Lidong said.

"That's acceptable."

Hearing it was co-produced by Yutu and CCTV, the quality was surely fine—the Yinhua PR rep relaxed slightly and added: "But the sponsorship for Dad Where Are We Going won't be canceled, right?"

"No, the original contract will still be honored. The ads on Let's Get Married are a gift to you, but only the first two episodes." Zhang Lidong said.

Too many ads, and they couldn't afford the losses.

"Two episodes?!" The PR rep held up two fingers.

"There's no choice—we have to pay high revenue shares to the producers. Your ads go up, we have to pay them out of our own pockets," Zhang Lidong explained.

"Add two more episodes so I can explain this to my superiors." The PR rep said.

"Sure, sure," Zhang Lidong waved his hand in agreement.

This conflict bled Chang'e Technology badly, but not catastrophically—it was thanks to the large loan guarantee Liu Tianxian had secured earlier; otherwise, they truly couldn't have handled this.

But Youku wasn't faring any better!

Because every day Bilibili was copying their content—American dramas, Korean dramas, Thai dramas, even Japanese dramas weren't spared.

Then they told netizens: "Here you can watch," and overseas drama fans were ecstatic.

Of course, Youku also copied content from Bilibili and Chang'e Video, but those two platforms' content simply wasn't as rich.

Most were new content added this year—once popular, then faded, like My Love from the Star, whose popularity had already passed.

Much of the content was still old material from Hong Kong, which they also had; Chang'e Video simply lacked Youku's deep accumulation—you could copy freely.

Of course, Bilibili Up Masters weren't copied—if anyone copied them, chaos would erupt, triggering massive outrage and a flood of users storming their platform to curse them.

Of course, secretly copying a few high-quality pieces was fine—just a few people couldn't stir up trouble.

Don't think the author is exaggerating or calling people idiots—this is based on real events, real events, real events!

(End of Chapter)