Recently, the shell finance reporter of the Beijing News conducted an exclusive interview with pan Kaixiong, former member of the Party group and vice president of China Publishing & Media Holdings Co.Ltd(601949) group. The questions involved the problem of disorderly prices of books in online channels, the problem of combating online literature piracy and how to build IP belonging to China.
Pan Kaixiong told the reporter of shell finance and economics that the press and publishing industry has been raising the problem of “controlling the disorderly price of books in online channels” for many years. This year’s new discovery is the live broadcast of books. In his opinion, the profits of live broadcast books have been earned by middlemen, specifically the so-called “spokesperson”, “big V” and anchor. “In addition to the pit fee and the lowest price of the whole network, the average settlement is about 3.5% off the book price, and a lot of profits have been taken away by the carrier.” Pan Kaixiong said that this also makes physical bookstores miserable.
Pan Kaixiong also criticized the “IP fever” in recent years. In his opinion, “not all intellectual property rights (IP) have commercial value, and not all intellectual property rights have cultural value. In other words, not all IP have development value.” Wasn’t there a group of people in Waterloo that year? Seeing a few good TV dramas, he frantically bought IP and hit it in his hand because he didn’t understand what IP was.
For online literature piracy, pan Kaixiong believes that the main reasons for the frequent occurrence of infringement and piracy in the field of online literature are: compared with film and television dramas and games, the form of written works is simple and easier to copy. Pirated platforms can quickly steal a large amount of original content through text recognition OCR, crawler and other technologies; The online literature piracy industry has formed a huge industrial chain. The cost of building a piracy platform is not only low, but also from website design and operation, content import, to the benefit acquisition of advertising alliance and the flow distribution of search engine, the online literature piracy market has formed a certain industrialization and standardization.
The : profits were earned by middlemen
Beijing News: worked in the press and publishing industry for many years. You have been paying attention to the price of books in online channels. Please tell us in detail.
pan Kaixiong: international practice is to legislate to make the discount of new books within one year of listing not less than 20% or 8.5% China Publishing & Media Holdings Co.Ltd(601949) Association issued a similar initiative ten years ago, but the relevant departments denied it on the grounds of violating the anti unfair competition law. In fact, the international consensus is that book prices should belong to the category of “cultural exception” and should be given due preference and protection.
Since last year, book sales have more channels for live broadcasting and goods, which makes physical bookstores miserable.
Readers think they have bought tangible benefits, but the profits have been earned by middlemen. Specifically, when it comes to live broadcasting, they bring the so-called “spokesperson”, “big V” and anchor. In fact, the publishing house has not made any actual profits, because the original publishing house settled with the bookstore at least at a 60% discount on the book price, and the online sales are basically settled between a 45% discount and a 50% discount (on the book price). In addition to the pit fee and the lowest price of the whole network, the average settlement is about 3.5% off the book price, and a lot of profits are taken away by the carrier.
What about the publishing house? If the 3.5% discount and 4.0% discount make it difficult for the publishing house to sustain, the publishing house will pass on the cost in the form of price increase. Now the price of books is at least three to five times higher than when I published them. The price of a very thin book is set at 80 yuan. When I published it, it was only 20 yuan to 30 yuan.
Beijing News: is there any regret at present?
pan Kaixiong: then continue to raise the problem of controlling the disorderly price and discount of books in online channels.
The insufficient integration operation
Beijing News: when you attended the event, you talked about the development of literary IP. In your opinion, what should you pay attention to when developing IP?
First of all, we should understand the concept of intellectual property rights. However, not all intellectual property rights have commercial value, and not all intellectual property rights have cultural value. In other words, not all IPS have development value.
The second concept is the so-called “big IP”. Because a few years ago, TV dramas such as “pretender”, “Langya list” and “biography of MI Yue” were popular, someone added the word “big” in front of intellectual property rights to become “big IP”. Many people’s understanding of this “big IP” is that the transformation of this “IP” can bring huge economic benefits. For example, for TV dramas, the ratings are relatively high, and the advertising and other income are high. This is a so-called “big IP”; There is also a so-called “big” from the perspective of the cultural industry, that is, the chain of IP development is relatively long and can be adapted into games, movies, TV dramas, or souvenirs.
Didn’t a group of people go to Waterloo that year? Seeing the above TV series, he bought IP crazily and hit it in his hand because he didn’t understand what IP was.
Finally, IP transformation is indeed China’s weakness. We basically have no successful cases in integrating and operating big IP. According to the truth, in traditional culture, some like journey to the West may become big IP. However, in the 1990s, many theme parks of journey to the West died. I’m afraid this is not a question of whether journey to the west is IP, but whether we will operate it.
The : part app , search engine and application market
Beijing News: as the leader of the traditional publishing industry, why do you pay attention to the topic of combating online literature piracy? What are the specific suggestions?
pan Kaixiong: although ( China Publishing & Media Holdings Co.Ltd(601949) group) is a traditional publishing unit in your impression, in fact, we have all kinds of digital technologies, emerging publishing technologies and new media, which are also an important part of our work.
The reason why the proposal to crack down on piracy in the Internet circle is because the market situation has changed. After years of continuous crackdown on piracy of traditional publications, it is indeed better than in the past. In a sense, the piracy of online literature is more hidden than that of traditional publications, and there is no mature understanding of its importance, crackdown and even working mode, so we put forward such a proposal.
In 2020, the scale of China’s online literature market was 28.84 billion yuan, but at the same time, the loss of Chinese online literature piracy reached 6.028 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 6.9%. As of December 2020, the overall number of active users of key pirated platforms has reached 7.274 million, the average monthly use time is nearly 19 hours, and the average monthly startup times is as high as 115. These data comprehensively illustrate the fact that the piracy market of online literature is no longer a trivial matter. It has seriously hindered the development of normal online literature and infringed on the rights and interests of online literature authors.
Beijing News: my parents actually read pirated online texts on some websites. In your opinion, why is the high incidence of online literature piracy? What are the difficulties in governance?
pan Kaixiong: compared with the copyright protection in the fields of film and television, music and games, online literature also faces “three mountains” of piracy and infringement – some apps, search engines and application markets. These three types are the main scenes and positions of online literature piracy.
As a pure text product, from the technical level, the threshold of being pirated is relatively low. However, due to the large readership of network literature, the benefits obtained by (pirated Network Literature) are not small. Moreover, online literature piracy also has an industrial chain, especially the advertising, traffic distribution and application scenarios of app, search engine and application, which leads to the intensification of this phenomenon.
As for why? Fundamentally speaking, it is the protection of literary copyright. Relatively speaking, it may be less powerful than the protection of some scientific and technological inventions and patents. From the idea of cracking down on words, to the idea of improving the management of piracy, it brings a series of problems.
In the past, piracy in the traditional publishing field was also very serious, but few people were punished for piracy. I know only two people, one pirated “selected works of Deng Xiaoping” and the other pirated “Cihai”. These two people are sentenced. Several other people were fined, but the penalty was not painful or itchy, not to the point of losing their wealth. Therefore, the crime cost in the field of piracy is very low and the profit is not small. Of course, now from the infringement of traditional publishing to the infringement of network literature, this is an inevitable result of the development of the times.
Beijing News: I see that your suggestions on combating online literature piracy mention the principle of safe haven. Can you talk about it.
pan Kaixiong: the so-called “safe haven principle” is a protective and encouraging measure in the early stage of network development. When the network just entered China, (service) was almost free, which encouraged the development of network technology in a sense. However, when the network began to commercialize, it itself was a huge market and brought great benefits to people. Some rules should be adjusted accordingly. For example, many (infringing) Internet platforms cite the “safe haven principle” to justify themselves or even get rid of their crimes.
