China gestures towards IP protection in music. But how far will it go?

The latest move intended to prevent the spread of unlicensed music freely available on the Chinese interwebs has originated from Chinese national copyright watchdog the National Copyright Administration. As a part of the Chinese government initiative Operation Sword Net 2015, the NCA has issued an edict requiring all online music streaming services to remove unlicensed content from their services by July end. Whether this has any real weight behind it remains to be seen, as is the case with local government bureas and ridesharing apps, rulings originating from government bureaus are not tantamount to codified law. Also not clarified is the distinction between downloads and streaming and specifically whether or not unauthorized downloads will be affected. Does this mean illegal downloads will be given a freepass?

In any case if all goes to plan, say goodbye to the treasure trove of free music to be found on apps like Xiami and Duomi and at major player offerings QQ Music (Tencent) and Baidu music. Service providers have been given two months to come up with a paid solution to fulfil their obligations to content providers. Perhaps this time, real efforts to monetize and commercialise China’s nascent music industry are being made and we can look forward to the development of the industry in the same fashion as has been seen with the video industry.

Or then again, perhaps this is just further bluster and like with Kuaidi Didi/Uber very little will change and the status quo will remain.

What do you think? Is the Chinese government serious about protecting IP when it comes to music? Are we going to be seeing substantive change any time soon? Leave your comments below.

Hat tip to Technode & Tencent for the heads up.