Biquge’s annual revenue is 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version

Biquge has an annual income of 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version.

Biquge has an annual income of 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version. Behind the prosperous online literature market, there is a hidden secret Huge piracy industry chain. Although its commercial value is widely recognized, domestic online literature has been plagued by piracy for more than two decades and has never been eradicated. Biquge’s annual revenue is 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version. Biquge’s annual revenue is 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version1

Have you read online novels? Have you heard of Biquge?

Recently, the news that Biquge made 6.2 billion yuan in annual revenue from pirated Internet articles and robbed 30 billion yuan in 5 years has aroused heated discussions among netizens. This pirated website has caused great harm to the legitimate interests of Internet article authors. .

It is reported that Biquge was born in 2012. Its founder quickly achieved financial freedom due to piracy of online articles, and then moved to Singapore.

But he "kindly" published the open source code of Biquge related websites and how to build the website, which can be purchased by some merchants for only 100 yuan. Source code.

As a result, thousands of piracy platforms disguised as "Biquge" have appeared in recent years, forming the "Biquge Universe", which relies on "transporting" novel chapters to obtain illegal income. Reached an astonishing 6.2 billion yuan.

According to @Daily Economic News, a senior person familiar with the Internet literature industry revealed that Biquge will not move completed novels, but only steals those that are being updated. content, which resulted in a sharp decline in writers’ income.

Tianyancha App shows that as of now, there are more than 50 trademark applications for "Biquge". The applicants include media companies, e-commerce companies, information technology companies, etc., and 20 have been successfully registered. Remainder.

There are more than 70 copyright registrations for Biquge-related software, including "Biquge Software", "Biquge Platform", "Biquge Novel Reader", "Biquge Free Novel Encyclopedia", etc. There are 55 copyright holders. Biquge’s annual revenue is 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version 2

The online literature industry has been suffering from piracy for a long time. On May 26, the Copyright Society of China, 20 online writers associations, 12 online literature platforms and 522 online writers such as Tang Jia San Shao, Butterfly Lan, and Mao Ni jointly launched an anti-piracy initiative. This is also the first time since the birth of the online literature industry The largest collective initiative.

In this prosperous world, why is the problem of online literature piracy so difficult to solve?

The scale of the online literature industry in 2021 will reach 35.8 billion yuan

According to the "2021 China Online Literature Copyright Protection and Development Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") issued by the Copyright Society of China , online literature has become an important source of content for China’s digital culture industry. In 2021, the number of online literature users in China was 502 million, accounting for 48.6% of the total Internet users, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%; the industry scale reached 35.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.1%.

Judging from industry data, the relationship between film, television, animation and online literature has long been "inseparable", which has also made the commercial value of online literature recognized by the industry.

Public data shows that from 2019 to 2020, among the top 50 cultural industry IPs in the country, online literature native IPs accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 40. Research data released by China Research Network in 2021 shows that this Among the 110 crews at Shihengdian Film and Television Base, 23 crews cover themes adapted from online novels, accounting for more than one-fifth.

Take animation adaptation as an example. Tencent Animation and China Literature Animation *** jointly launched the "Internet Comic Adaptation Plan", and there are also "The Master", "The Patriarch of the Demonic Way", "The Blessing of the Heavenly Official", etc. Animation works adapted from Internet IPs are not only highly popular in China, but also have a certain influence overseas.

“The film, television and animation industry has long been dependent on online literature IP.

Film, television and animation itself is a high-production and high-investment industry. The biggest advantage of adapting Internet literature IP is that it can test the real demand of the market before investment, reducing the cost of blind investment in production and promotion of some works. "

iiMedia Consulting CEO Zhang Yi told a reporter from Securities Daily, "Internet IP has not only been very popular in the Chinese market in recent years, but has also received good response overseas. It has a great influence in Chinese-speaking areas and countries that pay more attention to Chinese culture. ”

Data from China Literature Group shows that as of 2021, China Literature’s overseas portal Qidian International has launched about 2,100 translated works of Chinese online literature, attracting and cultivating more than 200,000 overseas creators and original works. About 370,000.

The scale of piracy losses in 2021 will reach 6.2 billion yuan

Behind the prosperous online literature market, there is a huge piracy industry chain. The "Report" shows that industry revenue mainly comes from user payments and copyright operations. The average monthly payment for a single user of online literature is 14.5 yuan, and the average copyright operation revenue of online literature platforms accounts for about 25.3%.

China Digital Culture. The industry scale reached 784.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.7%. The IP full copyright operation of online literature affects the market of games, film and television, animation, music, audio, etc., which totals approximately 303.7 billion yuan. That is, the impact of online literature and its IP operations on the digital culture industry. The impact range is nearly 40, an increase of about 2 percentage points from 2020.

Although its commercial value is well recognized, domestic online literature has been plagued by piracy for more than 20 years and has never been eradicated.

The "Report" shows that the scale of piracy losses in 2021 will reach 6.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.8, accounting for approximately 17.3% of the online literature market; on most online literature platforms, more than 80 works are pirated every year; as high as 82.6% of creators are deeply affected by piracy.

In March this year, staff from Jinjiang Literature City said in an interview with the media that the current problems surrounding the copyright protection of online texts are mainly. There are two aspects. On the one hand, the low cost of text piracy makes many text-based anti-theft technical means ineffective; on the other hand, the long time, high cost and low penalty amount of rights protection litigation also make many The infringed authors are forced to "give up on protecting their rights," making the infringement more unscrupulous.

The phenomenon of piracy continues, and some piracy websites make a lot of money, the "Report" mentioned. Biquge is a typical pirate that has formed a one-stop black production chain of "piracy-distribution-advertising". It is understood that Biquge is a website founded in 2012. The founder made a fortune by piracy of online articles. Freedom. After moving to Singapore, he released the open source code of the "Biquge" related website and how to build the website, forming the "Biquge Universe" and earning billions a year.

Analysis of the entertainment industry. Teacher Zhang Shule told a reporter from Securities Daily that it is easy to pirate online articles. Paying users can take screenshots or type them by hand, and they are easy to spread. Moreover, some piracy websites are set up overseas, and the founders are anonymous, making it difficult to investigate and deal with them.

Basically, industry insiders participating in this initiative generally believe that the most effective measure to control piracy is to "associate platforms to strengthen pirated content retrieval capabilities and copyright protection awareness, and block pirated accounts/websites/content"; the key is to promote national copyright protection supervision The implementation of the mechanism will consolidate the autonomy responsibilities of search engines, application markets and other platforms, and cut off the piracy profit chain from the source. Biquge has an annual revenue of 6.2 billion, making more money than the original version 3

According to the daily economic news report, recently, the online writing platform "Biquge" suddenly became "popular", with tens of thousands of people writing about it. A piracy platform under the guise of "Biquge" formed the "Biquge Universe" and relied on "porting" novel chapters to obtain illegal income.

According to the "2021 China Online Literature Copyright Protection and Development Report" released by the Copyright Society of China on May 26, in 2021, the scale of losses from piracy of online literature in China was 6.2 billion yuan, and nearly 90% of online literature The platform and nearly 80% of writers agree that the reason why piracy continues to be banned is that technological means have reduced the cost of piracy. Piracy platforms, search engines, and application markets have become the “three big mountains” for online literature piracy and infringement.

Also on May 26, 522 Internet writers including Tang Jiasanshao and Mao Ni jointly called for the application of technology in copyright management, search engines to fulfill platform responsibilities, and application markets to strengthen copyright review. This is also the largest collective appeal in the online literature industry in recent years.

There are no absolutely safe copyright technical protection measures

The scale of losses from online literature piracy is 6.2 billion yuan, which also means considerable profits behind piracy. At present, technological development does have a negative impact on copyright protection. Copyright protects original expression, which must be fixed on a certain carrier.

With the evolution of history, expression carriers evolved from stones, turtle shells and bark, to paper, to the electronic storage media commonly used today. From handwritten books to copy machines to "Control C" on keyboards, original information is stored, transmitted, and accessed electronically, and the efficiency of information processing increases exponentially.

Therefore, from the perspective of technological development, technological development has increased the circulation and commercial utilization of copyrighted works, and has also brought about the problem of widespread piracy.

Since many online literary works are directly published on online literature platforms, pirates have omitted the process of electronicizing information on paper carriers in traditional piracy and can directly mine, copy and disseminate them; despite the copyright law Rights owners and stakeholders are empowered to impose technical protection measures on copyrighted works. However, as “the road is higher, the devil is higher,” the development of technical protection measures and technical circumvention measures always goes hand in hand.

Whether it is time stamps or digital copyright management systems such as blockchain, there are no absolutely safe copyright technical protection measures. Therefore, if we hope to monopolize or hinder the opening and circulation of original information through technical support, we will inevitably fail. After all, copyright is not a trade secret. If we reduce the exposure of copyrighted works or impose restrictions on the publication of works, it will run counter to the purpose of copyright to promote cultural prosperity and dissemination.

Platform responsibilities need to have clear boundaries

It is legitimate for platforms to assume copyright protection obligations, but responsibilities need to have clear boundaries. As some experts have said, the effectiveness of law as an incentive mechanism relies on the observability and verifiability of behavior. These two conditions mean the information cost of law and also determine the boundaries of law. The dependence of the law on behavioral characteristics determines that copyright law must use punishment rather than reward mechanisms to protect copyright.

In practice, the dissemination of online works cannot be separated from the participation and support of technology platforms. Therefore, the legal mechanism hopes to make the platform a joint subject of infringement liability, and hopes that the platform will help copyright owners purify the market and expel the spread of pirated information under the pressure of the penalty mechanism.

This is also a practice of the economic principles of applying notice-and-takedown rules to online platforms. Because when the platform has the ability to detect pirated information, the platform is efficient; if it turns to the Copyright Office or the court, the procedure is long and costly, and in the end the network platform still needs to technically assist in implementation.

However, there are various platforms, and the technical principles and network functions of each platform are different. Online literature platforms naturally spare no effort in maintaining online copyright, because they have the same interests as the copyright holders and can directly benefit from combating piracy. However, the main responsibility and first priority of an information distribution platform that ensures the efficient flow of information is not to protect copyright. It is even anti-copyright in a sense, that is, it opposes the exclusivity and monopoly of information, such as the search engines mentioned above.

Therefore, the laws of various countries have set different copyright (assistance) protection obligations based on the nature of the platform. For example, network service providers that provide automatic network access services or automatic transmission services are not liable for certain copyright infringements.

Similarly, the application market cannot ensure that every APP uploaded to the market will not engage in copyright infringement during operation. This is the same reason that traditional shopping malls cannot ensure that every rented counter will never sell counterfeit goods.

Of course, the application market has corresponding reminders and notification obligations to protect intellectual property rights. After receiving infringement information, the infringing APP will be removed from the shelves. However, these obligations cannot be expanded indefinitely, otherwise they will affect or accidentally harm the provision and dissemination of non-proprietary information.

The digital copyright "filter clause" in the EU's "Digital Single Market Copyright Directive" has also caused huge controversy. The essence of the problem is that the user-generated content (UGC) platform has not obtained the authorization from the rights holder for specific works. At the same time, can the platform use effective technical means to review and filter UGC content, and at the same time "make its best efforts" to obtain copyright authorization or ensure that unauthorized content is not available? Therefore, it is impossible for the law to make every online platform a "copyright policeman."

How to solve piracy from the source

If piracy is solved from the source, then the platform and application market will naturally not be able to "help the evil". If the main function of a platform is to distribute pirated information, then the purpose of establishing the platform is illegal. This kind of serious piracy is not only the target of civil rights protection, but also an important part of criminal crackdown. The "Biquge" mentioned in this news report undoubtedly has such "characteristics" and should be managed with legal weapons to protect intellectual property rights.

Returning to how to protect the copyright of online literary works itself, rights holders need to set up technical management measures in accordance with the law and strengthen independent relief. At the same time, we use a good judicial environment to entrust third-party professional forces to combat piracy.

Finally, each of us needs to respect originality and protect copyright as a belief. Consumers are willing to pay for cultural consumption, so piracy will naturally lose its market.