Chapter 716: Big Blade, Broad Axe

The filming of The Martian was completed at the end of last year, and post-production has taken over half a year.

This movie doesn't have any Best Special Effects—it's just a concept wrapped in the skin of a sci-fi film.

Zhang Hongsen chatted with Fang Hong for a while, mainly telling him he was still young, had plenty of time to take things slowly, and didn't need to rush.

No one knows what the situation will be like later, or what the era will be like.

Fang Hong could only nod and say "Yes"—some things must be fought for, must be held onto; the tide of the era is this way, ethics and family ties are this way.

The current situation Bilibili faces is also something the era must go through; the copyright war was originally meant to make copyright more standardized and move forward.

At home, Liu Tianxian held her son in her arms, feeding him with a baby bottle.

Fang Hong sat beside her, his arm around her slender waist, smelling the milky scent emanating from her—this was the odor that clung to her every day from caring for the child.

Recently, Liu Tianxian had been staying home every day to care for the child; she wouldn't go out again until September.

"Look at your son—he's sucking down his milk so happily. Doesn't his little mouth smack just like yours?" Liu Tianxian teased.

"Yeah, Mom, I want to eat too," Fang Hong cooed, nudging his head against her chest, soft and now fuller.

"Stop it."

Liu Tianxian laughed and pushed him with her body: "You're such a big man, still acting so childish—your son's watching."

"Let him watch. Let him learn early how to charm girls, so he can find a wife sooner."

Fang Hong stroked his son's chubby face and coaxed: "Right, baby?"

The baby giggled "Gaga," very happy.

"What are you laughing at? Did you steal your mom's milk? That's not yours—you can only drink from your bottle. Your mom's milk belongs to me." Fang Hong teased.

Liu Tianxian's milk supply was insufficient, and she had to stimulate it, so she switched to formula—it was more convenient.

"Can you be serious when talking to your son?" Liu Tianxian was speechless—talking about this to a baby so young.

"It's fine—he doesn't understand anyway."

Fang Hong coaxed his son again: "Right, baby, do you understand?"

The baby didn't understand. Seeing this person talk to him, he just laughed loudly "Gaga," gleefully kicking his little legs.

He looked adorably plump.

The two of them warmly cared for and teased the child. Fang Hong glanced around and asked curiously: "After all this talk, where are the two moms?"

"They went out shopping, said they'd buy some things for the baby and told me to stay home and take good care of him," Liu Tianxian said.

"Why didn't you go?" Fang Hong asked.

"I'd be too noticeable. If I went to a maternity and baby store, the media would start speculating again—I want to keep the online environment quiet," Liu Tianxian said.

She hadn't appeared in public for a long time; if she suddenly showed up, especially shopping at a maternity store, there'd surely be more messy reports.

"That's true. Let me tell you something," Fang Hong said.

"What?" Liu Tianxian asked.

"The Martian has been submitted for the Oscar." Fang Hong said.

"Really?" Liu Tianxian exclaimed in delight.

"Yes, the award ceremony opens next February—exactly six months from now. Then you can go to the awards," Fang Hong said.

"Wow, that's great! I'll get ready and go out again," Liu Tianxian said happily, giving him a loud kiss on the cheek.

"Wait until after your birthday—go out after your birthday. The Immortal Empress returns to the martial world, and all gods retreat," Fang Hong waved his hand.

Liu Tianxian's birthday wasn't far off—it was already mid-August.

"Exaggerated. I'm just doing my job—I don't care about others," Liu Tianxian pouted.

"In the past half year you've been away from the entertainment circle, everything's changed," Fang Hong said.

The entertainment circle really has changed—driven by explosive traffic data, traffic stars have risen one after another, and a single Weibo comment can easily exceed a hundred million.

Along with it came an influx of fan clans, data explosions, skyrocketing prices, fan frenzy, and capital chasing—entertainment has become a mess.

While Fang Hong and his team fought in the film market, many capitals were already riding the traffic wave hard, and this year was the peak of the Traffic Era in China's entertainment circle.

It was also the year with the largest bubble and the most severe problems exposed.

Data falsification, traffic supremacy, sky-high paychecks, fan clans—problems kept emerging.

For example, the movie The Lost Tomb, starring a young heartthrob paired with a veteran actor, earned 160 million on its opening day.

Those fans endlessly praised the movie, flooding every social media platform with posts about it.

Those who didn't know thought it was a masterpiece—it turned out to be a piece of absolute garbage.

Yet the box office remained steady, earning over a hundred million every day—all paid for by traffic and those fans.

Later young heartthrobs didn't have this influence—they'd be labeled as trash before even releasing, constantly mocked; now, young heartthrobs have exactly this kind of power.

Their own fans are furiously whitewashing them.

All one can say is that the entertainment circle's rules have been completely rewritten by the era—the Traffic Era has arrived.

Just as the copyright war was causing panic, Bilibili faced a mass halt in updates by creators, declining traffic, and mounting external pressure demanding compensation.

Bilibili released several announcements in succession:

The first was that Bilibili would invest one billion yuan annually to secure exemption rights for derivative works.

This targeted copyright holders—once this was announced, a large number of copyright agents would withdraw their lawsuits, all wanting a share of that one billion.

Some only needed a few million, others just tens of thousands—not every copyright was that expensive.

Once they received the money, they no longer cared about derivative works, though there was a time limit—usually two or three years.

That is, once money was accepted, the copyright was effectively licensed to Bilibili for two or three years, unless a new film or TV copyright emerged.

The second announcement raised the creator revenue share from 70% to 80%, which would cause a sharp increase in platform payouts to creators.

In other words, annual payouts would surge from the original 7.5 billion yuan to over 8 billion, an increase of several hundred million, under one billion.

Of course, once this announcement was made, even more video creators would flock to Bilibili.

Those creators who had originally been watching the situation, avoiding lawsuits, also returned in droves.

But this time, Bilibili provided them with a copyright library, allowing unrestricted access to a vast collection of Yutu Film and Television.

Chang'e Video also imported films and TV dramas from India, South Korea, Thailand, especially Indian productions — an untapped virgin territory.

Many viewers loved the curry flavor, finding it uniquely interesting.

Additionally, some old Hong Kong films were also being licensed and added to the copyright library, to circumvent mainstream licensing systems.

Don't think you can just brute-force it and refuse to pay copyright fees — it's doomed to fail; whether in court or through official documents, it won't be recognized.

If so, Yutu's hundreds of film and TV copyrights could also be freely used by others — this is both competition and opportunity; Yutu could also launch copyright lawsuits against others.

The copyright war is a massive reshuffling of the market; only a few fixed players will own copyrights going forward.

The market structure will solidify during this copyright war.

Of course, this won't be settled in one or two days — it could take years or even a decade, because copyright infringement happens anytime and anywhere, with someone always itching to steal.

Moreover, defining infringement is extremely difficult — how much editing counts as infringement, whether dubbing or background music qualifies as infringement, etc.

This round of increased revenue sharing is beneficial to all creators.

The third point is cracking down on clickbait titles and low-quality content that piggybacks on traffic, promoting in-depth content, and increasing the duration coefficient!

This is to improve the platform's ecosystem and target those studios — with higher revenue shares, these studios will inevitably face crackdowns.

They register dozens of accounts at once and post garbage videos saying, "What do you think? Leave a comment."

They've lost so much money, suffered such losses — they must make up for it somewhere else.

This not only improves quality content but also reduces expenses — a two-for-one benefit. Of course, there's always a trade-off, but the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks.

With the crackdown on so many studios, fresh blood is needed.

The fourth point introduces the "Up Master Growth Plan" — support for newcomers, granting them traffic bias and a guaranteed minimum traffic to help them get started.

Later, it'll depend on the newcomer's content data — good data means a breakout.

Under this series of measures, Jack Ma couldn't help but sigh: "How is this a copyright war? It's clearly helping the Principal identify problems and overhaul them with sweeping reforms."

Qian bribed copyright agents to circumvent copyright — this will inevitably lead to a massive number of dropped lawsuits;

Qian raised revenue shares, causing a large number of Up Masters to return, and attracting new ones too — they aren't all doing film commentary; some are making comedy videos, filming daily life.

Even those specializing in commentary will now reselect from the new copyright library to circumvent licensing restrictions.

Of course, apart from these measures, all previously created film and TV derivative works remain online, still playing and generating revenue.

Therefore, technical measures will be adopted to systematically identify these copyright-disputed films and TV shows.

Then, they'll be processed via speed adjustment, cropping, color grading, dubbing, etc., to circumvent copyright.

It's not up to the Up Masters to do this manually — Bilibili and Douyin's backend will handle it uniformly via Big Data systems.

Of course, this will be a massive undertaking; AI is still immature, so Big Data must be relied upon to screen and process.

But no matter how huge the workload, it must be handled — it's not just about training the team, but also advancing the technology.

With hundreds of millions of videos, manual processing is impossible — only Big Data combined with basic AI can accomplish this. This is a challenge and a chance for technological advancement for Chang'e Technology.

An automatic interception system will also be developed — any direct copying of film and TV clips will trigger interception.

If derivative content exceeds the threshold — such as over one minute — interception is triggered, followed by manual review.

All these operations aim to circumvent copyright — but Japanese anime cannot be handled this way.

Then we can only negotiate copyrights — negotiate as much as possible; for what can't be negotiated, just sue for damages and don't take it down.

Let's drag out the first and second trials with endless appeals — delay it for years.

Also, find domestic alternatives — domestic animations like Under One Person, Soul Land, Fox Spirit Matchmaker, Painted Skin: Bad Guys have successively launched on Chang'e Video and Bilibili,

This is the result of Fang Hong's earlier push for large-scale investment in the animation market — now it's time to reap the harvest.

Meanwhile, web dramas also exploded this year — over three hundred titles like Chen Ergou's Amazing Life, The Soul Snatcher have launched on Chang'e Video.

The richness of content exceeds the combined total of other platforms like iQIYI, Youku, and Tencent Video.

All of this is the result of Fang Hong's costly early investments — now, as time passes, they're all exploding at once.

After Bilibili released this series of reforms, not only did Up Masters return, but they were also guided to change their direction, and lawsuits dropped sharply.

After all, that billion yuan still had an effect.

Of course, this doesn't mean lawsuits disappeared — hundreds of intellectual property cases still await them.

We can only negotiate slowly, negotiating while litigating.

In any case, this is the largest copyright lawsuit in history.

Of course, Tencent has also moved — launching massive copyright lawsuits against Douyin, Bilibili, and Toutiao.

With the rise of short videos, the use of music as background has surged, making intellectual property issues especially severe.

This is the most lethal threat to Chang'e — every platform uses music, whether songs or BGMs, all fall under this scope.

And the compensation amounts are enormous.

What must come will come — Chang'e already had a plan ready: suing Tencent for abusing its market dominance, filing a complaint with the market regulator.

And it used public opinion to widely spread claims of Tencent's music monopoly, urging regulatory bodies to intervene against monopolies.

Articles and analyses like this are everywhere online!

Not only Chang'e is spreading the claim of Tencent's music monopoly — NetEase and Migu Music have also launched counterattacks against Tencent.

NetEase even filed a countersuit against Tencent: using market dominance to set up barriers!

Whenever Tencent moves, other music-dependent platforms will move too — all acting in self-interest, because Tencent controls too many music copyrights through capital.

They don't let others use them — only they use them. If others use them, they sue. They even send legal notices.

Demanding huge compensation amounts — who can take this?

Seeing Chang'e strike back, everyone else will strike back too.

Now isn't the time for mutual music licensing — mutual licensing only happens after fierce battles and when higher authorities intervene to mediate.

Right now, Tencent is hogging everything, trying to squeeze every other music platform to death.

Even after they were called in for talks, the conflicts between them remained huge—Tencent took 98% of the non-premium music licensing rights.

They kept the 2% of premium music exclusively for themselves.

In reality, only 1% to 2% of songs are premium music—the ones people actually listen to all the time.

The rest are rarely listened to and don't hold much value.

Even with cross-licensing, the prices are sky-high, and other platforms, including NetEase, can barely afford them.

What business cooperation? Who do you think you are?

The market is just that brutal—it's either you die or I live; win-win cooperation is nothing but pure fantasy.

Even without Fang Hong, without Chang'e Technology, they'd still be fighting each other to the death. Look at Kugou, Tian Tian Listening—where did they all go?

What replaced them? QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music!

Where did QVod, Baofeng go? What replaced them? iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video—that's how brutal it is.

Just as the copyright war was raging fiercely, Zhang Yiming, following Fang Hong's strategy, smoothly completed a full acquisition of the United States' 【Musical. ly】.

【He paid】 1 billion US dollars in cash—this money was borrowed directly from overseas financial institutions, no funds from Chang'e Technology's pool were used.

1 billion is small change for Chang'e Technology's current scale!

After the acquisition was complete, 【the next step】 was merging 【Musical. ly】 with TikTok.

Of course, the merger wasn't that fast—user base, brand recognition, and the creator ecosystem all needed a transition.

The biggest benefit of this merger was a kind of infiltration into the West; it's as if the global market has already opened its doors to Chang'e Technology.

And Chang'e Technology's organizational structure was adjusted once again—Zhang Nan was put in charge of domestic Douyin only.

Zhu Jun, as Vice President, is in charge of TikTok. He is one of the founders and core leaders of 【Musical. ly】, so putting him in charge keeps the original trajectory and continues expanding the International Market.

This product's headquarters was set up in Singapore.

If they brought it back to China right after the acquisition, the Americans would probably get sensitive again—they're awfully petty.

(End of Chapter)