It will be charged starting next year. Mainly aimed at downloading high-quality genuine music.

December 31 this year will be the end of the “free lunch” for online music downloads in China that has lasted for more than ten years. Reporters yesterday confirmed from Duomi Music President Shi Jianping that online music platforms such as Baidu, QQ Music, Duomi, Kugou and Kuwo have basically reached an agreement and will launch paid download services starting from the end of the year. This move is in response to the call of the three major international record companies, Warner, Sony and Universal, to share accounts with copyright owners through the "guaranteed + share" method.

However, this payment is only for downloading high-quality genuine music, and online listening is still free. Although each company has different pricing, it will basically fluctuate between 1 yuan/deposit and 10 yuan-20 yuan/month.

The industry has agreed to "take it all together"

The domestic online music market, where "free lunches" are everywhere, will finally sound the clarion call for large-scale charging. Starting from December 31 this year, Baidu, QQ Music, Duomi, Kugou, Kuwo and other music platforms will gradually close their free download functions and turn them into paid services.

“This time point is a requirement put forward by the three major record giants. It is not a mandatory requirement. Each company may make specific arrangements based on its own situation.” A person familiar with the matter said that since the previous contract has not been expired, Baidu Music It is possible that charges will only start in April next year.

Shi Jianping said that the above five websites have basically covered more than 95% of the domestic online music market share. Of course, there are other websites besides these 5, but they have not been announced yet. They may have their own plans. In addition, many domestic record companies are also in negotiations and will soon join the charging bandwagon.

Currently, many netizens are criticizing the above news, believing that the "collective change of face" of several major websites is hijacking users. In this regard, industry insiders also seemed aggrieved. "Actually, we started negotiating payment sharing with record companies at the end of 2009, but the implementation conditions were very difficult at that time because pirated and free music services were everywhere on the Internet. Whoever dares to be the first to stand up and charge fees will be very passive. " Shi Jianping said that this time the industry's consensus on "collective action" cannot be said to be a formal alliance, but rather a sign of helplessness.

Online listening to music is still free

After the free era has come to an end, how will the fees be charged? At present, the three major record labels have given an industry "guide price", which specifies the minimum tariff for services such as monthly downloads. However, when interviewed, various music websites stated that they did not intend to form a unified charging standard, but instead set a unified charging standard. Differentiated pricing based on "following principles".

There have been rumors that QQ Music will implement payment standards of "1 yuan/song" and "20 yuan monthly" next year, but this news has not been officially confirmed. Due to the sensitive period of mutual wait-and-see, Domi did not disclose its tariff standards, but it defaulted that each company's pricing will basically fluctuate within the above range.

However, this does not mean that users will have no songs to listen to in the future without paying. Shi Jianping revealed that the paid service is only for lossless downloads of genuine high-quality songs, and online listening is still free. Usually "lossless music" is compressed while preserving 100% of all the sound details of the music scene. Common formats are APE and FLAC, which can be equated with CD sound quality. At present, QQ Music has launched a similar "VIP download". Users need to purchase a green diamond of 10 yuan/month to use it, and Kugou also has a paid high-quality download service.

In order to prevent savvy netizens from exploiting loopholes to "eat the king's meal", many websites have upgraded their encryption methods so that users cannot obtain music downloads through browser cache and other methods.