Chinese internet giant Tencent’s music arm, Tencent Music Entertainment Group, has filed a lawsuit against Netease’s music services over copyright infringement in a Shenzhen court. Nine infringement cases were pointed out, involving more than 200 best-selling songs from Chinese well-known musicians (in Chinese).
Tencent Music insists that Netease Cloud Music disseminated the music which Tencent owns exclusive rights without permission. It is reported that Tencent Music asked the defendant to immediately stop providing playing and downloading service on the mentioned recorded audio products on Netease Cloud Music website, PC client, mobile client, and tablets. Tencent Music also asked for compensation for economic losses and asked the plaintiff to issue a public apology statement to the public.
Tencent Music’s prosecution of Netease Cloud Music involves the contents of Lin Weizhe studio, Huayi Brothers, and many other record companies, mainly related to music artists including Sodagreen, Shang Wenjie, and Xie Na. In addition, Tencent Video’s music variety show “The coming one (明日之子)” also appeared in a large number of Netease Cloud Music platform without authorization.
Netease Cloud Music responded in a public statement that it is now going through the negotiations with Tencent music on copyright license transfers. However, currently Netease Cloud Music has not completed the negotiation, so the company will have to pull down those songs from their music library.
Tencent Music’s songs are an easy target because Tencent-backed music apps KuGou, QQ Music and Kuwo were the three most popular music apps in China in terms of monthly active users (MAU) in the first quarter of 2017, followed by Netease Cloud Music.