You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 382 Qvod makes money
Davis didn't expect that he could make a fortune by supporting the purchase of genuine products.

This shows that supporting genuine products is right!

In the future, we must strongly support genuine products and protect intellectual property rights. This is the political correctness of administrative agencies and enterprises.

Davis has already started planning whether to promote YouTube's support for copyrighted content after returning to the United States!
That's big business.

No, no, no, I am doing this entirely to promote the legitimate business and protect copyright.

This is beneficial to the copyright holders, it helps the website to combat competitors and maintain market fairness. It is a win-win situation for all parties!
John is truly a business genius. We should cooperate with him more often in the future and increase our efforts!
Davis is now happy from the bottom of his heart.

Although he had become a billionaire from the last collaboration, who would complain about having too much money?
"We at Microsoft have always supported the protection of intellectual property rights!" Davis picked up his coffee cup again and said loudly, "Mr. Bill Gates has reiterated this point many times!"

"As a subsidiary of Microsoft, YouTube should clearly stand on the side of copyright holders and actively take action to protect intellectual property rights!"

Qin Shaoyan also smiled and clinked glasses with the other party, "Well said, we should support genuine products more. To purify and rectify the barbaric market, we should start with me!"

The two looked at each other and burst into laughter.

"John." Davis thought for a moment, "What should we do next?"

"Sign the copyright contract first," Qin Shaoyan replied, "and then hype it up and build momentum through public opinion, promoting Yiku.com as a typical company that supports genuine products."

"This will pave the way for subsequent public opinion and increase the impression of administrative agencies, film and television companies, and TV stations. After all, they are the ones who suffer losses, and maintaining copyright is in their interest."

You have to use one faction to fight against another and make as many friends as possible.

This is the true secret!

Get all the stakeholders sorted out so that it is easier to tie them all together.

As long as momentum is created in public opinion, relevant interest groups will naturally follow suit. If they see that the benefits are big enough, they will work even harder.

Film and television companies may not have enough influence, but TV stations are different. They are public institutions and belong to the radio and television management department.

Pirated resources on the Internet are actually harming their interests.

In other words, the Internet is still small in scale, and the number of netizens watching videos is too small compared to the number of TV viewers, so it has not touched the basic base of TV viewers.

But if they find that there is profit in pushing video websites to buy copyrights, the situation will be different.

It is an open secret that some people within the TV station and those on the video websites collude with each other to make huge profits from copyright fees.

The reason why video websites suffer heavy losses has a lot to do with the huge amount of money spent on purchasing copyrights.

In the era of the three giants iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, they competed with each other and rolled up the copyright fees.

At the same time, in order to make money, relevant interest groups deliberately raised the copyright price and divided the money 50% to 50%.

In another world in 2014, the former general manager of Penguin Video Department was also sued by Penguin for corruption after leaving the company and joining Alibaba.

In 2018, the president of Youku, a subsidiary of Alibaba Entertainment, was arrested.

Administrative units are naturally also involved. For example, a corruption case involving the purchase of TV dramas in Jiangsu Province was exposed, more than 10 senior executives were investigated, and more than 30 film and television companies were involved in bribery, including many listed companies.

The purchasing and advertising departments of major TV stations were the hardest hit.

After Internet giants entered the video website market, a battle for content copyrights began. Large-scale copyright purchases were very frequent, with copyright fees alone amounting to hundreds of billions each year.

Film and television works are popular cultural products. It is difficult to form a standardized and mature film purchasing system, and it is impossible to evaluate their quality using tangible evaluation criteria.

There are no specific quantitative standards, various opacities exist in the purchase and sales process, and the decision-making power of the buyer is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

The platforms have a lot of autonomy when purchasing dramas, so the trend of corruption will inevitably spread to video websites, and they will become the key "public relations" targets of film and television companies.

Whether it is Alibaba or Penguin Video, when signing a contract with a partner, they generally attach an "anti-bribery and anti-corruption agreement" or a related letter of commitment. The fight against corruption seems to start from the source of cooperation.

But it still doesn't work.

In fact, 30% of film and television companies have bribery problems, and the remaining 70% do not want to bribe but simply cannot find a way to do so.

So sometimes it may be corrupt people asking for kickbacks, but more often it is the film and television companies who offer kickbacks on their own initiative as a thank you or as a stepping stone.

After hearing that the TV station could be brought on board, Davis became visibly more excited.

Although he did not understand the situation of Chinese television stations, he knew that no matter which country they were in, television stations had a very large say in public opinion.

If you want to create momentum through public opinion, you have to get TV stations involved.

What's more, TV stations are also stakeholders in copyright issues.

With the TV station as our ally, we will have a better chance of success.

Davis was already getting a little impatient. He put the coffee cup back on the table and said, "I will immediately send an email to my boss and tell him about this plan."

"Don't worry." Qin Shaoyan waved his hand, "We still have some details to optimize."

"It doesn't matter." Davis doesn't care about the details, as long as he can come up with a plan to please the boss. Bill Gates doesn't care about the details either, he only cares whether his subordinates do their job well.

Davis had already stood up. "I'll have someone come over tomorrow to discuss the details of purchasing the copyright with you. John, have your lawyer work overtime to draft the contract. The headquarters still needs to review it."

Qin Shaoyan then remembered that he couldn't sign the contract now and had to let the other party's legal department review it first.

"Then can we sign the contract before next spring?" Qin Shaoyan asked.

"No, no, no. Although their work efficiency is indeed low, it's not that exaggerated." Davis smiled. "I still have friends in the legal department, and I can talk to Bill and ask them to speed up the process and complete the review next month."

Davis left with a satisfied smile, and he wanted to get the matter done quickly.

After all, every day of delay means a day of loss for the copyright owner.

Qin Shaoyan called Xiong Xiaoge immediately and said, "Boss Xiong, I have good news for you."

"Apart from the listing of the campus network, I can't think of any good news you can give." Xiong Xiaoge said a little tiredly.

"Qvod.com is making money!" Qin Shaoyan said happily, "Isn't this good news?"

"Huh?" Xiong Xiaoge was a little surprised. "You're finally going to add ads on Qvod?"

"No, no, no, adding advertisements is too low-level." Qin Shaoyan corrected.

"Then how do you make money?" Xiong Xiaoge was also a little puzzled, "You can't start charging membership, right?"

"I shared the copyrights of the TV series and movies I bought from Qvod with Yiku." Qin Shaoyan said with a smile, "The copyright royalties are $15 million per year."

"How much?!" Xiong Xiaoge was shocked. "Fifteen million? US dollars?!"

"That's right." Qin Shaoyan emphasized again, "It's 15 million US dollars."

"Davis, who is in charge of YouTube business, just agreed in person. We have already started drafting the contract."

When Xiong Xiaoge heard that it was Yiku.com, he immediately believed it 90%.

This is indeed something that only Yiku.com can do. After all, it is a foreign-funded company, and now with the support of Microsoft, it can be said to be very wealthy.

Using copyright as a stepping stone to open up the Chinese market is indeed a good move.

What surprised Xiong Xiaoge was that just two days after he talked to Qin Shaoyan about making money on Qvod, Qin Shaoyan immediately gave him a satisfactory answer.

Previously, when Xiong Xiaoge talked about Qvod's profitability, it was not a warning, but only a veiled persuasion.

After all, video websites can’t keep burning money without seeing any profit.

Then Qin Shaoyan used practical actions to tell Xiong Xiaoge that it was not that Qvod could not make money, but that Qin Shaoyan did not like to make money in the conventional way.

What surprised Xiong Xiaoge even more was that Qin Shaoyan actually made money through copyright.

When Qin Shaoyan was buying up copyrights of TV dramas and movies on a large scale, many people didn’t understand. It was obvious that video websites were spending a lot of money, but they still had to squeeze out a lot of money to buy copyrights and insist on a genuine strategy. Isn’t that stupid?
Now I finally understand that they are not stupid, but are still one step ahead of their peers.

Xiong Xiaoge sighed, "Boss Qin, you will definitely be the most successful entrepreneur in the Internet industry. Your future achievements will definitely not be worse than Ding Sanshi and Zhang Chaoyang."

What I mean is, if I can't beat them in the future, what's the point of living here?

However, considering the current Internet situation, Xiong Xiaoge's words are already a high compliment.

Qin Shaoyan said perfunctorily: "Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Xiong."

"But there is one thing I need to tell you first. Of the 15 million US dollars, Qvod only made a profit of 10 million."

"We have a fixed expenditure of $5 million per year on public relations."

"That's no problem." Xiong Xiaoge didn't care at all. This kind of thing was very normal, and he didn't ask who the money was for.

"But don't worry, Mr. Xiong. In two years, the copyright fees for movies and TV series will rise across the board. By then, it will be more than 15 million US dollars." Qin Shaoyan said seriously, "And I have already discussed it with Yiku.com. We will work together to actively promote the legalization of movie and TV content on video websites."

"We will use two to three years to help Qvod.com acquire more genuine resource partners. By then, the annual copyright licensing fees alone will be enough to cover the operating costs."

"Very good, Mr. Qin, just go for it." Xiong Xiaoge was instantly happy, "I fully support Mr. Qin."

Xiong Xiaoge hung up the phone happily.

Qin Shaoyan's reaction was much calmer. In his opinion, it was only 15 million US dollars, which was indeed a lot of money for him personally, but it was a drop in the bucket for the video website.

However, this is a positive signal to investors. After all, it is necessary to provide emotional value to investors.

Make them believe that it is easy for Qvod to make money, and at least they won’t lose too much.

Otherwise, how can they continue to invest money with confidence?

(End of this chapter)