Restart life

Chapter 572 0560 [Pregnant?]

With ByteDance making such a big fuss, the first direct victim is Kuwo Music.

Kuwo Music has developed rapidly in the past two years. It completed its Series C financing at the beginning of last year, with investors including Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners China, Ceyuan Ventures, and others.

This year, negotiations for a Series D funding round have begun, with investors including Baidu and Phoenix.com. To put it bluntly, this round of funding isn't solely about money; they also want to gain access to resources from Baidu and Phoenix.com.

As soon as ByteDance held its press conference, Phoenix.com withdrew from financing negotiations. Although Baidu was still willing to continue talks, it immediately halved its valuation of Kuwo Music.

Li Mingyuan, Tang Hesong, Zhang Beini, and Liang Zhixiang were summoned by Robin Li for a small high-level meeting. They were respectively responsible for Baidu Mobile and Baidu Cloud, Baidu's strategic investments and acquisitions, Baidu Music affairs, and Baidu's legal department.

“Byte Music, together with hundreds of record companies, sent us a lawyer’s letter yesterday. They demanded that Baidu MP3 and Qianqian Music remove the infringing songs within two months, or they will sue us.”

Liang Zhixiang said, "We are not afraid of lawsuits. Even if we lose, we will only have to pay a few hundred thousand at most. But I estimate that winning the case and getting compensation are not their main goals."

Tang Hesong said, "ByteDance Music's push to strengthen music copyright supervision, even with the backing of a cultural industry fund, still needs a breakthrough in public opinion. Clearly, ByteDance has chosen Baidu Music. Once a public opinion storm is stirred up, it will greatly damage our corporate image."

Zhang Beini said, "I hope the company can increase its investment in music business and accelerate the legalization of Baidu Music."

Li Mingyuan said, "Both mobile and cloud businesses need music as a component."

The four individuals were in complete agreement: they hoped Robin Li would invest more resources in making Baidu Music legitimate.

Li Yanhong then asked them for more specific ideas and plans. After a brief exchange, the meeting ended without any resolution.

Making a decision isn't that easy!
Those people at Baidu have basically guessed what Chen Guiliang is planning to do.

Among major domestic music platforms, Baidu Music (Baidu MP3 + Qianqian Music) has the worst track record in terms of copyright protection. Therefore, it is the most suitable target for public opinion.

Byte Music's next move is quite simple: sue Baidu for copyright infringement of millions of songs. Given the current situation, such a large-scale lawsuit will likely result in compensation ranging from 50 to 200 million yuan.

Millions of songs were infringed upon, yet only a million or two million yuan was awarded in compensation. This outrageous ruling will be seized upon by ByteDance to publicize it extensively.

This will inevitably spark heated discussions and create a huge public opinion storm. Byte Music and the Cultural Industry Fund, together with record companies, singers, and experts, will then take advantage of this momentum to promote stronger music copyright regulation.

Baidu will be in the eye of the storm, and its corporate image will be severely damaged!

As the saying goes, "Many lice don't itch, many debts don't worry." Baidu's corporate image is getting worse and worse, but Robin Li doesn't seem to care as much.

His strategy was: whatever.

A few days later, the financing negotiations between Baidu and Kuwo Music came to an end.

Alibaba seized the opportunity and entered the fray.

……

Alibaba has always wanted to expand its entertainment business.

Baidu and Tencent are struggling with ByteDance Music, but Jack Ma sees this as a good opportunity.

Alibaba was already in talks with Kugou about financing, and now it's taking the opportunity to halve the valuation while simultaneously going to talk to Kuwo.

After a series of negotiations, Alibaba became the largest shareholder of Kuwo and Kugou for only $1.2 million. It was practically free.

Following this, Alibaba announced the establishment of Alibaba Music, merging the two major music platforms, Kuwo and Kugou. It also spent heavily to acquire song copyrights that ByteDance Music had not yet obtained, and contacted ByteDance hoping to acquire song copyright distribution rights.

At the same time, QQ Music announced that it would provide cloud services, frantically bought copyrights everywhere, and also contacted ByteDance Music for distribution.

The battle between ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent in instant messaging, mobile payment, and cloud technology is not over yet, and now they have suddenly started a war in online music.

It's enough to keep the onlookers busy.

Music copyright fees skyrocketed as a result.

However, ByteDance Music has acquired almost all of the most popular songs, both domestic and international, as well as the rights to major record labels. The only difference is the length of the copyright period.

The three major international record labels are particularly difficult to deal with; they were unwilling to sign even the "3+2" contract, only agreeing to a "3+1+1" contract. This means a three-year base contract term, with one year for automatic renewal (with a price increase) and one year for priority renewal.

……

Li Yanhong has more important things to do, so he is not getting involved in the online music war.

In 2011, Baidu's peak market capitalization was approximately $460 billion, surpassing Tencent's at the time.

As a result, the term BTA began to emerge, representing Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba.

Jack Ma's illegal divestiture of Alipay caused a collective plunge in Chinese concept stocks. Baidu's stock price initially fell but rebounded strongly for more than six months before declining again due to weak development of new businesses.

In January of this year, Baidu's market value rebounded to $385 billion.

In February, Baidu released its quarterly financial report, and due to poor performance in its mobile business, its market value plummeted to $337 billion.

In March, Baidu's market value fell to $312 billion.

Traditional PC business is considered outdated, and investors now prefer mobile business.

For Baidu's stock price to recover, it needs a standout mobile product – namely 91 Assistant.

Although Baidu may seem to have been taken advantage of, spending $19 billion to acquire 91 Assistant, its market value surged by $140 billion in the month the deal was finalized!
The stock market is crazy.

The story of the Spring Festival Gala red envelopes spread to the United States, and along with ByteDance's release of its quarterly financial report, ByteDance's market value soared by billions of dollars some time ago.

The stock price has risen too high, which is detrimental to stock liquidity. ByteDance is already planning a stock split or additional share issuance. ByteDance and Baidu, one rising and the other falling.

Before Baidu completes its acquisition of 91, ByteDance's market value is very likely to surpass Baidu's.

This comes just as Alibaba delisted from Hong Kong last year and launched its IPO fundraising in the US this year. Investment institutions have seen a surge in their valuation of Alibaba.

In May, a senior programmer posted on Weibo: "Shouldn't we change the term 'BTA'?"

A large number of IT professionals responded immediately.

Some say BTBA, some say TBAB, some say TBBA, some say ATBB.

Anyway, just add all the bytes in.

This had nothing to do with 360, but Zhou Hongwei insisted on joining in: "I propose the best ranking solution, which would allow Chen Laozu, Li Yanhong, Xiao Ma Ge and Ma Jieke to meet at Chaoyang Park."

This statement immediately went viral.

Because Zhou Hongwei and Lei Jun challenged each other to a fight last year, Chaoyang Park has become a popular spot for such a confrontation.

Netizens have been arranging to have a fight at Chaoyang Park over various trivial matters.

Even an associate professor at a political science and law university had a fight with a female reporter from Sichuan over an online dispute at Chaoyang Park.

The park management has also increased the number of security guards and cameras, and is monitoring the park's south gate in real time from the main duty room.

Many netizens forwarded Zhou Hongwei's Weibo post and tagged Lei Jun (CEO of Lei Jun) to ask for his opinion.

Lei Jun seized the opportunity to attract attention by posting on Weibo: "Zhou Hongwei's suggestion is good, but let's forget about the fight, after all, this is a society governed by law. I can act as a tour guide and take the four of them for a stroll in Chaoyang Park."

Tao Chenggang, who has already invested in Tangren Media and is currently "dating" a female star, also came to join the fun: "Let's not talk about a fight, mainly because there's no suspense. Has everyone forgotten Old Master Chen's achievements in junior high school?"

Many netizens immediately realized what was happening.

"No need to fight anymore, Old Master Chen will definitely win."

"Indeed, he must have been the one who chased after the other three and beat them up."

"Why? Is Chen Guiliang a very good fighter?"

"Brother, you have internet access in the village? When Old Master Chen was in junior high, he chased after more than ten thugs with a watermelon knife. He ended up sending four of them to the hospital."

"Old Ancestor Chen possesses the abstract power of the primordial chaos. With a single palm strike, he can reduce those three from a 3D state to a 2D abstract state."

"Alright, no need to argue anymore. B, representing ByteDance, should definitely be ranked first. Please rank the remaining three companies as you see fit."

"Old Master Chen, hurry up and update Volume Six of 'Those Things About the Ming Dynasty'! Damn it, it's been half a year since I last updated it!"

"..."

Joking aside, the business battle continues.

ByteDance's Cloud Music app continues to see a surge in users. This is because the app offers the best user experience for listening to music and boasts the most advanced features.

NetEase Cloud Music has been hit hard, with its daily active users plummeting!

Chen Guiliang lay in the villa garden sunbathing. Now, his business rivals were the ones who were worried, while he could enjoy himself for a few days.

The Global Mobile Internet Conference is coming up soon, and I'll be meeting Pony Ma again.

I reckon that after they meet, Little Ma won't give him a friendly look.

In this timeline, Tencent not only lost WeChat to Chen Guiliang, but also had DNF replaced by Future Era and League of Legends replaced by Oracle Era.

Tencent's market value is far less than in the original timeline.

However, this also led Tencent to make other changes, vigorously strengthening its self-developed PC games, mobile games, and web games.

Tencent's eight game studios were integrated ahead of schedule, completely abandoning "LOL" and investing resources in "Overlord of the Three Kingdoms" - Zhao Yun and Lu Bu in "Honor of Kings" were ported from "Overlord of the Three Kingdoms".

It's estimated that once mainstream mobile phone performance is upgraded again, the project launch of "Honor of Kings" won't be far off.

"Dou Zhan Shen" is also accelerating its development and will be officially launched this summer.

CF is heavily promoted by Tencent as a flagship product, earning the company a lot of money every year.

A large number of Shanda's old games were taken over by Tencent and relaunched as mobile and web games.

Tencent's "Temple Run" and "Candy Crush" are fiercely competing with similar products from Youke. Last year's "Blade & Soul," and this year's "Monster Hunter Online" and "Counter-Strike Online"... have also achieved remarkable success.

Tencent even has a mobile game called "Xiaoyao You" that Chen Guiliang had never even heard of, which became a huge hit after its release last winter break. This mobile game is full of the feel of a web game, especially the gacha system, which is equivalent to a low-budget version of "Onmyoji".

"I think I'm pregnant." Bian Guanyue came over with a pregnancy test.

Chen Guiliang was lying comfortably in the sun when he heard this and immediately sat up in surprise.

Bian Guanyue said, "I didn't wear a condom during my safe period last time, and that's probably when I got pregnant."

Chen Guiliang thought to himself: I have to get married now, otherwise Bian Jingsong will come at me with a knife.

(End of this chapter)