Tencent's biggest joke about copyright protection.

Whether entering a field early or late, Tencent products and companies always seem to have natural advantages.

From the game products such as QQ Speeder and QQ Hyun Dance in the PC Internet era to the video number in the mobile Internet era, when most people think that the overall market situation of related products has been fixed, Tencent's products can always quickly enter the market and gain a foothold under the blessing of huge traffic.

Judging from the performance of Tencent products in recent years, they often end up playing the role of reapers, the market has been educated, and users' usage habits are basically fixed. What Tencent's products have to do is to maintain and realize the foundation.

But when the anti-monopoly trend is deepening, can Tencent still sit on Diaoyutai as before?

The death of the panda and the collapse of Kaixin.com.

Last June, 5438+ 10, there was heavy news in the webcast industry. Two leading platforms, Betta and Huya, are discussing a merger. If this happens, Tencent, as the behind-the-scenes shareholder of the two platforms, will officially become the leader of the new company.

Coupled with Tencent's self-operated Penguin e-sports, the live game field will be unified and become Tencent's world completely.

However, if we go back a few years ago, the field of live games is still a lively scene. In addition to tiger teeth and fighting fish, platforms such as pandas, battle flags and dragon balls are still booming.

Among them, the panda live broadcast founded by Wang Sicong, the young boss of Wanda, is the most embarrassing way to die.

In 20 18, Tencent successively injected capital into Huya and Betta, and by virtue of its strong dominant position in the game field, it continuously introduced resources to the two platforms, which put the panda, which occupied the third place in the live broadcast platform, at a disadvantage.

The sudden increase in competitive pressure quickly crushed the already cash-strapped panda. In March of the following year, the Panda Platform was closed, and Wang Sicong's dream of e-sports live broadcast was shattered. Tencent has become the only winner in the field of live games.

It is worth mentioning that after the panda live broadcast was officially closed, Tencent also brought its operating entity Shanghai Panda Mutual Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd. to court. Under the acceptance of Nanshan District People's Court in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, Panda Mutual Entertainment was finally awarded to Tencent. Pay authorization fee of 3 million, interest and liquidated damages of 600,000.

Compared with the panda live broadcast, the decline of Kaixin.com is also quite sad. The game of stealing vegetables, which was all the rage at that time, made countless players enjoy it. Kaixin.com also relied on the success of this game, and once had 65.438+300 million registered users.

However, the good times did not last long. At that time, Tencent quickly launched a QQ farm with a similar model in QQ space, which accumulated a large number of users, and the user activity in Kaixin.com was greatly affected. Since then, it has become more difficult to revive the glory.

In the end, Tencent entered Kaixin.com with a price of $654.38 billion, which was called Tencent's "carrot and stick" strategy. First, give a sap, and then reward a handful of sweet dates.

Panda Live and Kaixin.com are now lost in the long history of Internet development. Old fans want to recall the lush years of that year, but searching the whole Internet is the shadow of Tencent.

The copyright of the card neck, the invisible dark battle

In addition to holding a huge traffic portal, Tencent's absolute control over copyrighted content is another important factor.

Looking at the domestic game market, Tencent stands behind popular games such as League of Legends, the glory of the king, Jedi Survival, Stimulating the Battlefield, Crossing the Line of Fire, etc.

At that time, Wang Sicong Panda Live wanted to cut into the market with pan-entertainment content. After a period of operation, it was found that the live game still contributed the most traffic to the platform. If you want to operate deeply in this field, you cannot do without Tencent.

Faced with this problem, Wang Sicong's coping strategy at that time was to acquire the game team and spend huge sums of money to win the League of Legends team IG, which was unknown at that time. Under the strong offensive of Jinyuan, the IG team did not disappoint President Wang, and won the 20 18 League of Legends Global Finals in one fell swoop, becoming the first team in the division to win this honor.

This kind of differential treatment made Wang Sicong furious. Even after Weibo launched the lucky draw, it was specially marked that Tencent League of Legends employees were not allowed to participate.

Whether it is planning mistakes or commercial interests, Tencent, as the operator of League of Legends, has shown formidable control in this incident, especially for the live broadcast platform, and it is increasingly found that Tencent is a mountain that cannot be bypassed.

In the words of Li Xueling, chairman of Huya, Tencent holds 70% of the game market in China, and the cooperation with Tencent is very beneficial to the company's long-term development.

This sentence is true, but it always sounds a little helpless.

Under the anti-monopoly sword, has Tencent stopped?

In June 2020, 165438+ 10, it was autumn in Zhihu. The long-awaited Anti-monopoly Guide for Platform Economy (Draft for Comment) was officially released, and the whole Internet industry felt the chill of the coming winter.

For Tencent, the sudden landing of regulatory boots seems a bit out of place. At that time, the merger of two live broadcast platforms, Huya and Betta, was being promoted. However, after the anti-monopoly tide hit, Tencent had to temporarily slow down.

In addition, another merger case led by Tencent has also been retried. Tencent Music Entertainment Group, which was previously reported to have been subjected to an anti-monopoly investigation, was put back on the table, and even news came out that Tencent would suffer a huge fine of more than10 billion yuan.

Although the relevant rumors have not been confirmed so far, Tencent has clearly felt the meaning of being beaten. On April 30th, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued nine tickets in one breath according to the relevant laws and regulations of the Anti-monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China, three of which involved Tencent.

Tencent's three cases, two from the automotive field and the other from the retail field, are not the core business for Tencent, but judging from the nature of the incident itself, Tencent has already felt the pressure of a sword hanging high.

Back to the field of music copyright, from the second half of 2020, Tencent seems to be gradually giving up its monopoly on copyright to cope with regulatory compliance review. Music companies such as Warner, Universal and Sony have successively reached cooperation with Netease Cloud Music. Previously, their copyright in Chinese mainland was exclusively owned by Tencent Music.

Although Tencent is trying to get rid of the inherent impression of monopolists in the past, many of Tencent's past behaviors may involve monopoly and abuse of market dominance if we turn over old accounts.

On 20 15, all official WeChat accounts related to Uber China were permanently banned by WeChat on the grounds of suspected violation of relevant laws, regulations and policies. At that time, Wang Yichao, deputy director of public relations of Uber China, angrily denounced Tencent on the Internet and said, "On the one hand, I found someone to hack the manuscript and said that our defeat was fixed, on the other hand, I panicked and blocked it. It is really rare to say it is so embarrassing. "

In 20 19, three social software, Duoshan, Chat Bao and Toilet MT, were released on the same day, and were blocked by WeChat. The reason given by Ma in the circle of friends is: "Anonymous society with negative energy is clearly opposed, and there is nothing to say."

In addition, 360 sued for abusing QQ's dominant market position, and now Tik Tok sued Tencent for monopoly. If we dig deeper, can Tencent still get away with it like in the past?

In an article commenting on the Anti-monopoly Guide, Xinhua once wrote: Society needs competition and innovation, and monopoly is an obstacle to innovation.

Facing the irresistible trend of the times, it is time for Tencent to give an appropriate explanation.