Beijing e-License Technology Company Limited – Overview of Industry

(1) United States
  • The net revenue for digital media in the United States reached US$24.76 billion (approx. RMB 168.9 billion) in 2008.
(2) Japan
  • The digital licensed and digital entertainment contents business including music and video is well developed in Japan. According to the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs, online music and video contents of the Internet and the telecommunication reached approx. 977.2 billion yen (approx. RMB74.0 billion) in 2008. It was estimated that it would reach over 1 trillion yen (approx. RMB75.8 billion) in 2009.

(3) China
  • The launch of “3-Network Convergence”: one of the main purposes is to enforce the digital copyright protection. This reflects China’s progressive fulfillment of its commitment in copyrights protection after its accession to the WTO
  • The existing copyrights protection measures, copyrights management system and software are being enhanced for better protection of the copyrights owners.
  • Since 2009, Google has been paying major record labels annual royalties for licensed music<. Baidu (百度) is also prepared to pay royalties by way of sharing of advertising income.
  • From 2009 onwards, copyrights charges have been applied gradually to the KTV sector. In December 2009, a KTV in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province (山西省太原市) convicted a copyrights infringement was forced to close down. This is the first case of enforcement in the sector.
  • In September 2009, 12 departments, including the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (廣電總局) jointly issued a notice which stated “effective from 1 March 2010, websites without audio-visual programs broadcasting licenses which remain in operation for more than 3 months will be subject to investigation and closure”. Subsequently, many BT websites and video websites without the said licenses were forced to close down. This shows the determination of the authorities in enforcement of protection of copyrights.
  • Income generated from music related business of China Mobile:
  • Demand for copyrights protected digital music, video, animation and other digital content related business will continue to grow and is expected to reach RMB342 billion in 2010.