Anti-monopoly Regulations For Exclusive Licensing Of Digital Music Copyright

In recent years,since the National Copyright Administration vigorously promoted the legalization of online music in 2015,the digital music service industry has quickly become the mainstream business model of the Chinese music industry.However,in this process,most digital music platforms cooperated to obtain digital music copyrights,and most of them chose the exclusive licensing model.Record companies successively passed the collective management organization China Music Works Association and directly granted the information network transmission right of the music library to a single digital Music platform.The head digital music platform with capital and channel advantages has also obtained a large number of exclusive copyrights.The core resources of the digital music industry are gathered in a few or even one platform,so it is subject to monopoly.The exclusive licensing model is not uncommon in the commercial application of copyright.It is a legal monopoly based on copyright,but the copyright of music works is too concentrated,which means that a large number of music works cannot be widely spread due to exclusive licensing issues.There are also constraints on expansion.According to Article 55 of the Anti-Monopoly Law,even the relevant operators who obtained intellectual property rights through lawful means,such as misusing intellectual property rights and implementing acts of excluding or restricting competition,the anti-monopoly law is also applicable.Therefore,after obtaining a large number of exclusive copyright music resources and gaining a dominant market position in the relevant market,a few digital music platforms should be subject to anti-monopoly regulations if they abuse copyright to implement monopolies.However,China's digital music platform has several problems with antitrust regulations that abuse exclusive copyrights.First,the determination of market dominance in the Internet field is more difficult;second,the relationship between music copyright protection and the maintenance of fair competition needs to be coordinated;and finally,anti-monopoly law enforcement has long been absent.On the basis of fully demonstrating the vertical monopoly and abuse of market dominance that may be involved in the exclusive authorization model,combined with China's national conditions and the reality of antitrust regulations,antitrust regulations should fully adopt the three principles of equal treatment,reasonable analysis and social standard.The digital music exclusive exclusive license is moderately restricted,supplements the relevant regulations on copyright abuse in the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines on Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights,and improves the "Draft Anti-Monopoly Law Amendment Draft(Public Consultation Draft)",which is being revised.Relevant regulations for determining market dominance,appropriate introduction of antitrust public interest litigation and improvement of informal procedures.In the future digital music copyright authorization system,we encourage the use of collective authorization and individual authorization in parallel,retain the exclusive authorization model under individual authorization but promote the collective management model to become a competitive model,with a view to forming a new industry with healthy competition and healthy development pattern.