Chapter 572: The Warner Love Story III (1)

September 12, 2003, was nothing short of the sky falling for the entire staff of Virgin Records, who had just celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Yao Qian, who was rarely prone to rage and enjoyed a sterling reputation in the industry, lost his composure in a rare display, accusing the other party of being inhumane before the reporters who had rushed to the scene—

"I don't know what they hope to achieve by doing this; I only know that what they have done is an extremely foolish act, so foolish I can hardly believe it. They have completely lost the bottom line of being human!"

The leak of an album's tracks by the company's flagship singer was undoubtedly fatal for the Chinese music scene, whose environment was growing increasingly hostile.

Even with popularity as high as Watching Xiao Yaxuan's, it was impossible for her to withstand the damage free songs would bring to her album.

"I still don't know exactly what is going on, but this matter has indeed caused me considerable harm."

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who had rarely spent the Mid-Autumn Festival at home with her mother and younger brother, woke up completely dazed and was blocked by reporters right on her way rushing to the company. Facing the cameras, this newly crowned pop diva, hailed as a genius, wore a solemn expression.

"Elva, with this happening, will your new album 'Love in Love' still be released as scheduled?"

"I am not clear on that at the moment; it mainly depends on the company's arrangements."

Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who was cursing that bunch of idiots inside her head until she was blue in the face, could only offer a perfunctory smile on her face and hurriedly walked into the Virgin building while being chased by a swarm of reporters.

"The situation is very grim; we must release Elva's new album early."

At an emergency convened interim meeting, Yao Qian overruled the opposition and directly announced his decision.

After Watching Xiao Yaxuan, who fully agreed with her mentor's decision, also stated that she had no problem, Virgin Records immediately began to act—aside from immediately announcing the early release of the new album 'Love in Love', the legal department also went all out, searching for targets to strike—

Although this sounds very abstract—pirated audio sources are already circulating, so why still search for targets to strike? —the actual situation is exactly this.

Because there is no way to verify who actually released the audio sources.

In this barbarically growing internet era, traditional pirates can no longer keep up with the times; besides internal traitors within record companies, they also cooperate with the new era's internet piratical sharks...

"I don't even know what is going on in those people's brains; making money off piracy is one thing, but now they are forcing the entire market to its death? Don't they know that if the legitimate record market dies, it is also the end of the world for them as pirates?"

"I'm done; they really care for nothing at all for the sake of immediate benefits..."

On the phone, Watching Xiao Yaxuan cursed nonstop, her resentment towards the pirates nearly reaching the sky.

Zhou Yi, who was trimming his fingernails, listened while nodding and grunting, adding a few curses in agreement.

"Why do you sound like you are not at all surprised?"

"Nonsense, wasn't this expected long ago?"

Zhou Yi disdainfully curled his lip: "It's just that you still hold a strange mindset that even pirates have a code of honor."

Many crazy people in later generations who like to belittle the mainland market, accuse the mainland market of rampant piracy, and praise the Taiwanese music market often ignore a cruel reality—in the environment where the Chinese music scene's sales truly collapsed, the mainland market was actually the one propping up the overall market.

Counting backwards, whether in the seventies and eighties or the nineties, the main bulk of the legitimate record market was always the mainland market, which silently contributed sales and still had to endure the scolding. Relying solely on Hong Kong and Taiwan plus a handful of Southeast Asian countries, how could they ever break out of the so-called golden age;

Counting forwards, if the mainland market were not large enough to provide a floor, the singers of the Chinese music scene would starve to death directly.

Hong Kong's local sales of seventy to eighty thousand copies won the sales champion, and Taiwan's local sales of one hundred thousand copies could surpass Jay Chou to win the annual sales king; this is the reality.

And the ones who truly triggered the great collapse of the Chinese record market were precisely the big and small pirates in Taiwan itself—breaking the rules by leaking early, and even introducing the internet, directly starting the era of great collapse.

It was also after this that the pirates in the mainland began to copy them, with everyone starting to break the rules, until the formal entry of that huge beast—Baidu.

To be precise, it was the rapidly growing Baidu.

Pirated music directly provided Baidu with extremely huge fame and user volume, giving it great assistance in listing in the United States, creating a miracle of a stock surge upon listing.

If the pirates before only made the record giants run themselves ragged, then the exertion of the Baidu music platform system completely penetrated their psychological defense lines—

The global seven major record giants rarely joined hands to sue the pirated-infringing Baidu in court, yet they could not shake this first-generation internet era giant shark in the slightest, whether domestically or abroad.

Li Problem of this period could be said to have ascended to the heavens in broad daylight in the truest sense; facing foreign giants, he still did as he pleased, and at worst, he would just hire a lawsuit thug to fight you.

"Since the leak has already happened, hurry up and run the promotion; sell as much as you can, one more copy is one more. It just so happens that your popularity is high right now."

Adhering to the attitude of "since we are already here," Zhou Yi still advised her, using the heat of this piracy to play the victim, and in turn boost her ranking and fame; perhaps she could even win the title of anti-piracy pioneer.

Leaving aside other things, at the very least, her noble image was immediately raised; if Yao Qian was up to the task, the value of her endorsements could also be raised on this opportunity.

"Aren't you going to the United States to promote your ranking at the end of the year? Prepare in advance to market disappointment with piracy, create an image of a broken heart, and then go far to the United States to promote your ranking at the end of the year. Once in the United States, have Virgin arrange a scene for you, where people ask questions mentioning this Taiwanese piracy incident.

"Then you can strongly counter that piracy is not the reason you came to the United States to make a name for yourself, and cite the example of Madonna's audio leak incident to ride on her heat. Then market in Taiwan that you still love your birthplace, brutally torturing the fans' hearts, and purifying them..."

Zhou Yi, who had gotten into the spirit, spoke with perfect logic, leaving Watching Xiao Yaxuan listening in a daze.

For a singer, the most important thing is recognizability.

The competition in the United States is so fierce; without being unique, it is very difficult to be quickly remembered by a large number of listeners—this statement is indeed reasonable.

Watching Xiao Yaxuan silently noted it down and turned to hand it over to her mentor, Yao Qian.

"Hmm? Who gave you this plan?"

"Oh, I complained to Zhou Yi, and he asked his manager to help me come up with a strategy."

Knowing that Zhou Yi had a universal scapegoat position beside him, Watching Xiao Yaxuan remained calm and self-possessed.

Regarding matters of marketing tactics, she still wanted to maintain Zhou Yi's image in Yao Qian's eyes, after all, Yao Qian was indeed considered her half-father.

As everyone knows, in the mouths of fans, Zhou Yi is a white lotus unstained by the mud in the Chinese music scene—while the golden manager Qian Jiang beside him is the marketing mastermind hidden behind the scenes!

"Achoo!"

Qian Jiang, who had returned early to the Imperial Capital and was working, suddenly sneezed.

"Damn it, which little turtle grandson is cursing me behind my back again?" Rubbing his nose, Qian Jiang, who was arranging Zhou Yi's schedule, habitually muttered a sentence. He was just about to drink some water when the phone suddenly rang—

"Hello?"

"Mr. Qian, hello, I am Yang Junrong from Alpha."

"Oh, Mr. Yang, right? Hello, hello."

"It is like this, Mr. Qian. Chou will launch a tour next year, so I thought to see if Zhou Yi has time. If possible, I would like to invite Zhou Yi to be a guest on behalf of Alpha."

"Next year? This is not very clear at the moment; mainly because A-Yi is indeed very busy next year, he still has matters regarding the Athens Olympics to handle. When exactly?"

"Currently, it is preliminarily set to start the tour in October 2004..."

After inquiring about the relevant schedule, Qian Jiang, who did not close the door on the matter, hung up the phone and decisively called Zhou Yi, who was still playing in Shangrao—

"I have no problem; you arrange it as you see fit."

Warner had concerns, after all, Zhou Yi's current popularity and status were too high; he himself, however, did not care.

"Fine, then I'll decide based on the situation when the time comes. When will you be back?"

"Almost there, just these two days."

The school scenes in the music video for "Writing Poems for You" amounted to very little; if not for Ning Hao's higher demands, it would have ended long ago.

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi slapped his face and threw himself back into the MV shoot, acting out a youthful, secret crush from high school with Qin Lan.

Two days later, the high school scenes were finished. Except for some crew members who still needed to travel to Jiang Xi for location shooting, everyone else returned to the Imperial Capital.

However, on the way back, the cover of a new disc in Qin Lan's hand caught Zhou Yi's attention—

"'Warner Love Stories III'? How the hell can there even be a III???"