独立音乐代理商与中国流媒体平台签约

The body acting for some of the leading independent record labels has struck licensing deals with five of China’s biggest streaming services, the latest sign that the country is becoming increasingly important for western artists.

代理一些主要独立唱片公司的机构与中国最大五个流媒体服务达成许可协议，这是中国对西方艺术家日益重要的最新迹象。

Merlin, the London-based agency that represents 20,000 independent labels and makes up 12 per cent of the world’s digital music catalogue, signed deals with streaming services owned by Tencent, Alibaba and NetEase.

总部位于伦敦的Merlin代表2万家独立唱片公司，占全球数字音乐目录的12%。这家代理商已经与腾讯(Tencent)、阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和网易(NetEase)旗下的流媒体服务签署了协议。

The company expects the deals will give its acts, such as Vampire Weekend, access to 500m consumers, or 90 per cent of digital music listeners in China.

该公司预计，这些交易将使它代理的乐团——如吸血鬼周末(Vampire Weekend)——能够接触到5亿消费者，即中国90%的数字音乐听众。

Charles Caldas, Merlin’s chief executive, said digital streaming has given independent record labels a new-found global reach, after distribution in the CD era favoured the few record label behemoths with the cash to press, promote and ship them abroad.

Merlin首席执行官查尔斯•卡尔达斯(Charles Caldas)表示，数字流媒体给独立唱片公司带来了新的全球触角范围，不同于之前有利于寥寥几家唱片巨擘的CD时代，那时只有大公司才有财力制作和推广CD，并将其销往海外。

“Music is moving around the world in ways we’ve never experienced before,” he said. “A lot more value is going to come from markets that we were never really extracting value from in the physical [CD] world.”

“音乐正以我们从未体验过的方式在世界各地流行，”他表示。“更多的价值将来自那些我们在实体(CD)时代从未真正挖掘价值的市场。”

The deals come after the other three big suppliers of the world’s music, Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music, signed exclusive pacts with Tencent, which then sub-licensed the catalogues to other platforms in China.

达成这些交易之前，世界音乐的另外三大供应商——环球音乐(Universal Music)、索尼音乐(Sony Music)和华纳音乐(Warner Music)——与腾讯签署了独家协议，由腾讯向中国其他平台分销内容使用许可。

Merlin instead signed separate deals with Alibaba’s Xiami, Tencent’s QQ Music, KuGou and Kuwo, and NetEase’s Cloud Music.

而Merlin则与阿里巴巴的虾米(Xiami)、腾讯的QQ音乐、酷狗音乐(KuGou)、酷我音乐(Kuwo)以及网易云音乐(NetEase Cloud Music)分别签署了协议。

Tencent had a 78 per cent share of China’s streaming market revenues last year, and has used its clout and cash to outbid rivals for distribution agreements with western labels. The internet group, which is reportedly looking to take its music arm public this year, has looked to capture content rights to bolster its prospects with investors.

腾讯去年在中国流媒体市场营收中的占比达到78%，并已利用其影响力和现金压倒竞争对手，抢先与西方唱片公司达成分销协议。据报道今年可能将其音乐部门上市的这家互联网集团，希望获取内容权利以便向投资者展示更加光明的前景。

China’s National Copyright Administration called for an end to exclusive deals in September, aiming to encourage more competition in the market.

中国国家版权局(National Copyright Administration)去年9月曾呼吁结束独家交易，目的是鼓励更多的市场竞争。

Mathew Daniel, vice-president at NetEase Cloud Music, called the deal “a significant step forward for music licensing in China”.

网易云音乐副总裁马修•丹尼尔(Mathew Daniel)称，这一交易“对中国的音乐许可来说是向前迈出的一大步”。

Merlin yesterday revealed that its Latin American earnings have grown fivefold from 2015 to 2017, as streaming on YouTube and Spotify boomed in countries such as Brazil. The region’s biggest economy is now the sixth largest moneymaker for independent record labels — ahead of France and Australia.

Merlin昨日透露，从2015年至2017年，其拉丁美洲盈利增长了五倍，得益于YouTube和Spotify上的流播放在巴西等国蓬勃发展。拉美最大经济体巴西现在是独立唱片公司的第六大市场，超过法国和澳大利亚。

Independent labels are now hoping for similar luck in China, where paid digital music sales were projected to rise 59 per cent last year to $455m.

独立唱片公司现在希望在中国也会有类似的运气，根据估测，中国去年付费数字音乐销售增长59%，达到4.55亿美元。

China presents a compelling opportunity, said Mr Caldas, as electronic dance music festivals have popped up, which “would not have been happening five years ago, before streaming”.

Merlin的卡尔达斯表示，中国提供了一个令人心动的机会，因为电子舞蹈音乐节已在中国出现，“这在五年前，即流媒体盛行之前，是不会发生的”。