Free as a bard 如吟游诗人般自由
Seeking profit in the world's toughest recorded-music market 在全世界音乐市场最为艰难的地方寻求利润
Dec 2nd 2010 | BEIJING | from PRINT EDITION
No one will pay to listen to us. Perhaps they'll pay to watch?
没人会付账听歌，不过他们有可能会掏钱看演出吧？
SUPPOSE for a moment that the gloomiest predictions for the music business turn out to be correct. Efforts by governments and record companies to shut down file-sharing websites like the Pirate Bay fail. Piracy becomes so entrenched that people simply stop buying legitimate CDs. Customers drift away from Apple's iTunes store, which sells digital music tracks. They refuse to pay even trivial monthly subscriptions for music-download services like Pandora and streaming outfits like Spotify. Improbable? Not at all. In China, this worst-case scenario has already come to pass.
想象一下，音乐产业最糟糕的设想哪天真的成为了现实。政府以及唱片公司未能够关闭像Pirate Bay这样的文件分享网站。盗版如此猖獗，人们甚至不再买正版CD了，顾客也不再光顾卖数码版音乐的苹果iTunes了。他们甚至不愿意为像Pandora这样的提供音乐下载服务的网站以及Spotify这样批量下载的网站支付那零星的订阅费。这不太可能吧？可事实就是这样的。在中国，人们预想中的最糟糕的情况已经来临了。
Chinese consumers "won't pay a penny" for recorded music, says Gary Chen. The music promoter turned digital entrepreneur ought to know. In 2006 he launched Top100.cn, a website which offered a choice of à la carte music downloads and monthly subscriptions. Its prices were low―but not low enough. Chinese music fans were raised on knockoff CDs and are now accustomed to getting hold of music for nothing on file-sharing websites. China will soon have the world's second-biggest economy, but its legitimate music market is tiny (see chart). So Mr Chen changed tack.
陈戈说，中国的消费者对于音乐唱片是"不肯掏一分钱"的。这位曾经的音乐经纪人现在改行为数码企业家，他理所应当了解这些情况。2006年时，他创建了网站Top100.cn，提供单首音乐下载服务，顾客需要每月交订阅费。网站的价钱非常低，但显然还还不够低，因为中国的乐迷以前是听质量低廉的盗版CD，现在又习惯于从文件分享网站上一分钱不花的下载音乐。中国很快就要变成世界第二大经济体，但它的正版音乐市场微乎其微（看图表）。这就是为什么陈先生决定改变策略。
Last year Top100 began to offer Chinese internet users free MP3 music downloads, supported by advertisements. The website resembles a free iTunes store, or a Spotify that lets you download files rather than streaming them. It is the only such service in the world to enjoy support from leading record companies. Top100 streams about 200m tracks a month. Some 60% of its traffic comes from Google, which has invested in the website. This year Mr Chen reckons he will sell about 10m yuan ($1.5m) in advertising. That would be a trivial sum in America or Britain. In a country where sales of recorded music amounted to just $75m last year, it is not at all bad.
去年Top100开始向中国网民提供免费的MP3下载，资金由广告支持。网站就像一个免费的iTunes商店，或者像是一个让你下载文件而不是批量复制的Spotify。这是提供这类服务的网站中唯一一个赢得主要唱片公司支持的网站。Top100每月的下载量达到2亿首歌。其中将近有60%的访问量来自Google，因为Google 对该网站进行了投资。今年陈先生估计他在广告商可收入1000万元（150万美元）。对于美国和英国来说，这个数目不值得一提。但对于一个去年整个音乐行业才卖出7500万美元唱片的国家来说，这个业绩显然不坏。
Yet it is not good enough. Top100.cn is profitable only on an operating basis―in other words, before accounting for the money it pays to record companies for their content. Google's partial withdrawal from China earlier this year, which followed a cyber-attack on the company, reduced its share of the country's search market and cut traffic to Mr Chen's website. And Top100 faces fierce competition. Baidu, China's biggest search engine, also runs a popular MP3 search service. The record companies have sued, claiming that Baidu's service provides links to pirated songs. But so far the Chinese courts have ruled in the firm's favour. Mr Chen cites Baidu as his biggest competitor.
但这样还不够好。Top100.cn仅仅在业务运转方面是盈利的――换句话说，还没加上它付给唱片公司来获取音乐的开销之前，是盈利的。今年的早些时候，Google在中国取消了一部分业务，加上后来公司又遭到了网络袭击，这样便减少了其在中国搜索市场中所占的份额，同时也减少了陈先生网站的访问量。而且Top100也面临着激烈的挑战，因为中国最大的搜索引擎公司百度也提供一个很受欢迎的MP3搜索服务。唱片公司也曾经上诉百度，说其为盗版歌曲提供链接。但迄今为止，中国的法院还是偏向百度的。陈先生将百度视为最大的竞争对手。
If it is almost impossible to sell music, and hard to make money even from running advertisements next to free music, what options are left? Mr Chen has identified two. The first is to charge not for music but for selections of music. Top100 has begun to roll out smartphone apps through China's many online stores, charging a few yuan for music reviews and recommendations by well-known musicians, together with links to download their suggestions. The hope is that fans will pay for convenient, well-presented bundles of curated music, just as people pay for newspapers and magazines even though, in many cases, they can read all the articles online free. Next year Mr Chen also hopes to roll out a subscription cloud service, which will enable consumers to access their favourite tunes from a variety of devices.
如果几乎不可能卖出去音乐，甚至利用广告的收入来提供免费的音乐这种方法都很难赚钱，那还有什么别的选择呢？陈先生提出了两个方法。第一就是不收音乐的钱，而收选择音乐选集钱。他开始通过中国的许多网店提供智能手机的应用软件。这个应用软件提供一些知名音乐人的乐评以及推荐目录，再加上能够下载他们建议的链接，这些服务只收几块钱。这样做是希望乐迷们愿意为方便且出品优良音乐精选集买单，就像人们仍然愿意买报纸杂志，虽然很多情况下他们能在网上免费读到那些文章。陈先生计划明年能提供云服务，这样可以让顾客在不同的设备上都能听到自己最喜欢的音乐。
These experiments may not succeed. But Western media companies would do well to watch them. Forward-looking music executives and consultants have come to believe that, particularly for the young, value now resides not so much in recorded music but in the devices that play it, in the services that make it accessible and in the information and networks that allow it to be judged and shared between friends. In a country where other options for getting people to pay for recorded music have been exhausted, Mr Chen is putting those theories to the test. To see the future of the music business, look east.
这些实验有可能会失败，但西方的媒体公司可以单纯的观望。深谋远虑的音乐产业高管以及顾问们在经历了风风雨雨之后，开始相信现在价值不再是在唱片上了，而是在播放音乐的设备上，在提供音乐的服务上，在评价音乐的信息以及和朋友分享的网络上，而且对于年轻人来说尤其是这样。在一个所有其它让人们为音乐付账的方法都行不通的国家，陈先生就要将那些理论付诸实践了。若想看音乐产业的未来，请将目光锁定东方。
Seeking profit in the world's toughest recorded-music market 在全世界音乐市场最为艰难的地方寻求利润
Dec 2nd 2010 | BEIJING | from PRINT EDITION
No one will pay to listen to us. Perhaps they'll pay to watch?
没人会付账听歌，不过他们有可能会掏钱看演出吧？
SUPPOSE for a moment that the gloomiest predictions for the music business turn out to be correct. Efforts by governments and record companies to shut down file-sharing websites like the Pirate Bay fail. Piracy becomes so entrenched that people simply stop buying legitimate CDs. Customers drift away from Apple's iTunes store, which sells digital music tracks. They refuse to pay even trivial monthly subscriptions for music-download services like Pandora and streaming outfits like Spotify. Improbable? Not at all. In China, this worst-case scenario has already come to pass.
想象一下，音乐产业最糟糕的设想哪天真的成为了现实。政府以及唱片公司未能够关闭像Pirate Bay这样的文件分享网站。盗版如此猖獗，人们甚至不再买正版CD了，顾客也不再光顾卖数码版音乐的苹果iTunes了。他们甚至不愿意为像Pandora这样的提供音乐下载服务的网站以及Spotify这样批量下载的网站支付那零星的订阅费。这不太可能吧？可事实就是这样的。在中国，人们预想中的最糟糕的情况已经来临了。
Chinese consumers "won't pay a penny" for recorded music, says Gary Chen. The music promoter turned digital entrepreneur ought to know. In 2006 he launched Top100.cn, a website which offered a choice of à la carte music downloads and monthly subscriptions. Its prices were low―but not low enough. Chinese music fans were raised on knockoff CDs and are now accustomed to getting hold of music for nothing on file-sharing websites. China will soon have the world's second-biggest economy, but its legitimate music market is tiny (see chart). So Mr Chen changed tack.
陈戈说，中国的消费者对于音乐唱片是"不肯掏一分钱"的。这位曾经的音乐经纪人现在改行为数码企业家，他理所应当了解这些情况。2006年时，他创建了网站Top100.cn，提供单首音乐下载服务，顾客需要每月交订阅费。网站的价钱非常低，但显然还还不够低，因为中国的乐迷以前是听质量低廉的盗版CD，现在又习惯于从文件分享网站上一分钱不花的下载音乐。中国很快就要变成世界第二大经济体，但它的正版音乐市场微乎其微（看图表）。这就是为什么陈先生决定改变策略。
Last year Top100 began to offer Chinese internet users free MP3 music downloads, supported by advertisements. The website resembles a free iTunes store, or a Spotify that lets you download files rather than streaming them. It is the only such service in the world to enjoy support from leading record companies. Top100 streams about 200m tracks a month. Some 60% of its traffic comes from Google, which has invested in the website. This year Mr Chen reckons he will sell about 10m yuan ($1.5m) in advertising. That would be a trivial sum in America or Britain. In a country where sales of recorded music amounted to just $75m last year, it is not at all bad.
去年Top100开始向中国网民提供免费的MP3下载，资金由广告支持。网站就像一个免费的iTunes商店，或者像是一个让你下载文件而不是批量复制的Spotify。这是提供这类服务的网站中唯一一个赢得主要唱片公司支持的网站。Top100每月的下载量达到2亿首歌。其中将近有60%的访问量来自Google，因为Google 对该网站进行了投资。今年陈先生估计他在广告商可收入1000万元（150万美元）。对于美国和英国来说，这个数目不值得一提。但对于一个去年整个音乐行业才卖出7500万美元唱片的国家来说，这个业绩显然不坏。
Yet it is not good enough. Top100.cn is profitable only on an operating basis―in other words, before accounting for the money it pays to record companies for their content. Google's partial withdrawal from China earlier this year, which followed a cyber-attack on the company, reduced its share of the country's search market and cut traffic to Mr Chen's website. And Top100 faces fierce competition. Baidu, China's biggest search engine, also runs a popular MP3 search service. The record companies have sued, claiming that Baidu's service provides links to pirated songs. But so far the Chinese courts have ruled in the firm's favour. Mr Chen cites Baidu as his biggest competitor.
但这样还不够好。Top100.cn仅仅在业务运转方面是盈利的――换句话说，还没加上它付给唱片公司来获取音乐的开销之前，是盈利的。今年的早些时候，Google在中国取消了一部分业务，加上后来公司又遭到了网络袭击，这样便减少了其在中国搜索市场中所占的份额，同时也减少了陈先生网站的访问量。而且Top100也面临着激烈的挑战，因为中国最大的搜索引擎公司百度也提供一个很受欢迎的MP3搜索服务。唱片公司也曾经上诉百度，说其为盗版歌曲提供链接。但迄今为止，中国的法院还是偏向百度的。陈先生将百度视为最大的竞争对手。
If it is almost impossible to sell music, and hard to make money even from running advertisements next to free music, what options are left? Mr Chen has identified two. The first is to charge not for music but for selections of music. Top100 has begun to roll out smartphone apps through China's many online stores, charging a few yuan for music reviews and recommendations by well-known musicians, together with links to download their suggestions. The hope is that fans will pay for convenient, well-presented bundles of curated music, just as people pay for newspapers and magazines even though, in many cases, they can read all the articles online free. Next year Mr Chen also hopes to roll out a subscription cloud service, which will enable consumers to access their favourite tunes from a variety of devices.
如果几乎不可能卖出去音乐，甚至利用广告的收入来提供免费的音乐这种方法都很难赚钱，那还有什么别的选择呢？陈先生提出了两个方法。第一就是不收音乐的钱，而收选择音乐选集钱。他开始通过中国的许多网店提供智能手机的应用软件。这个应用软件提供一些知名音乐人的乐评以及推荐目录，再加上能够下载他们建议的链接，这些服务只收几块钱。这样做是希望乐迷们愿意为方便且出品优良音乐精选集买单，就像人们仍然愿意买报纸杂志，虽然很多情况下他们能在网上免费读到那些文章。陈先生计划明年能提供云服务，这样可以让顾客在不同的设备上都能听到自己最喜欢的音乐。
These experiments may not succeed. But Western media companies would do well to watch them. Forward-looking music executives and consultants have come to believe that, particularly for the young, value now resides not so much in recorded music but in the devices that play it, in the services that make it accessible and in the information and networks that allow it to be judged and shared between friends. In a country where other options for getting people to pay for recorded music have been exhausted, Mr Chen is putting those theories to the test. To see the future of the music business, look east.
这些实验有可能会失败，但西方的媒体公司可以单纯的观望。深谋远虑的音乐产业高管以及顾问们在经历了风风雨雨之后，开始相信现在价值不再是在唱片上了，而是在播放音乐的设备上，在提供音乐的服务上，在评价音乐的信息以及和朋友分享的网络上，而且对于年轻人来说尤其是这样。在一个所有其它让人们为音乐付账的方法都行不通的国家，陈先生就要将那些理论付诸实践了。若想看音乐产业的未来，请将目光锁定东方。
博文
没有评论:
发表评论