Back to 1995

Chapter 631 Black Hand
The media likes to join in the fun and praise the most. When Sean Fanning appeared in front of the media, he was immediately pushed out and compared with Song Yang.

After all, Song Yang and the current Sean Fanning seem to have the same experience, and many media have begun to praise Sean Fanning as a Bruno Song!
This is not a derogatory term. Although Song Yang's age is only two years older than Sean Fanning's, his status in the Internet arena is beyond Sean Fanning's.

The media touted Sean Fanning as the next Song Yang, and it was definitely a tout. Behind this, the venture capital institutions that invested in the Napster website must have fanned the flames.

However, Sean Fanning's exit from the circle has indeed made Internet music popular. The valuations of Scour, Napster, and MP3 websites have been raised one after another. These Internet music websites are touted as changing the entire recording industry.

Not only these websites, but also major portal websites such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN, and Lycos, which have always followed the trend, as well as search engines such as Infoseek, Excite, etc., have also launched their own music sections and communities.

To be more particular, I even ask the record company and the producer for a letter of authorization. It doesn't matter if I don't give it. Anyway, the major music websites now have no copyright...

The entire record industry is still a bit unresponsive. The five major record groups are still busy attacking each other at this time, wanting to annex each other, or poach the singer queen under the other party, without noticing it. Appeared!
At this time, it was the time when the record industry was in full swing. The five major record groups earned US$370 billion last year, and Michael Jackson and other top singers continued to set new records in record sales.

Even the rap, hip-hop and other songs played by African-American singers that were originally niche songs, because of the popularity of the record industry, the sales of records have soared. Luxuriant and debauched.

Think about it, the record industry, which can earn 370 billion U.S. dollars a year, if you add up the music-related industries such as Walkman, DVD, variety shows, concerts, music derivatives, song peripheral products, etc., this is An industry with an annual revenue of more than [-] billion US dollars!
Such a behemoth, suddenly a small website from the Internet industry came over and said that it would defeat the five major records, or even replace them. How would the five major record companies react when they heard the news for the first time?
Those singers, producers, distribution companies, record retailers, etc., after hearing this, they all have to look at the faces of Internet music websites, and they are afraid that they will laugh out loud.

As a result, Internet music websites are flourishing in Silicon Valley and the venture capital industry, but in the recording industry, they have not caused much disturbance, and no Hollywood person would think of pinching Scour and Napster. die.

In addition to several Napster websites that want to engage in "internet exchange files", the Saipan music store has also quietly launched.

Different from websites like Scour and Napster, they didn’t get music copyright at all, so they put various music links online, allowing users to exchange music with each other, or convert CDs in their hands into MP3 music links of tens of megabytes, and then play them. It is freely available for download on websites such as Napster.

The Saipan Music Store dominates genuine music. All the music in the copyright library of the Saipan Music Store is genuine music. Users can try it out, but after the trial period, if they want to download it, they need to buy it. The cost of each song is $0.99, the fee will change for the latest album or song.

The appearance of the Symbian music store has indeed attracted some attention. When the media saw that it was a music website launched by the Symbian system owned by Alcatel Mobile, many media reported it.

But when I saw that the Saipan Music Store turned out to be a paid music website, users were not allowed to upload songs, and users were prohibited from distributing them privately. Every song downloaded from the Saipan Music Store to a third-party platform or player, every Saipan music The songs in the store all have authentication codes to ensure that the links will not be spread.

These technologies and means are not very sophisticated, but for most users, it is difficult to crack them. If a professional spends so much effort just to listen to a song, then the Saipan music store also recognizes it. Yes, as long as he doesn't bother.

Compared with several other music websites, you can search a large number of songs, including the latest albums and songs, but on the Saipan Music Store, you can search all those old songs, and there are so many restrictions. The most important thing is that you have to Paying for listening, which makes the user scale of the Saipan music store far from that of Napster, which has skyrocketed.

Even with ICQ, Xueleshan Online Platform, Fortinet Antivirus, Hotmail and other brother companies helping to advertise, the user scale of the Saipan Music Store has never been able to increase.

However, the Saipan Music Store did not seem to be too impatient. Apart from asking ICQ and other websites to help advertise, it did not spend money on advertising in a big way, with an air of indifference to the world.

The Saipan Music Store first approached the Recording Association of America, hoping to let the Saipan Music Store join the Recording Association as a music publisher, but for the application of the Saipan Music Store, the Recording Association of America , but a little indifferent, and did not directly agree.

Subsequently, the Saipan Music Store sent cooperation requests to Universal, EMI, Sony, Warner, and BMG respectively, hoping to obtain their copyright libraries.

"Saipan Music Store?!"

Ames, the president of Warner Records, when he took over the documents brought by his subordinates, when he saw this name he had never heard before, he didn’t know where this music store came from. Warner Music's copyright library.

Ames really couldn't figure out who gave the Saipan Music Store the courage to want to take away the music copyright library of Warner Records in vain.

"This is a music website owned by Alcatel Mobile, and the biggest investor in Alcatel Mobile is Bruno Song!"

The staff of Warner Records said to Ames. Hearing Song Yang's name, Ames chuckled, "Who does he think he is, who can order Warner Records by making a Hollywood movie?!"

His subordinates reminded Ames, "Internet music is very loud now. The marketing department is worried that Internet music will affect record sales. Warner Music should have its own Internet music sales channel. If you want to enter the Internet music industry , Bruno Song might be a good collaborator..."

Hearing that Warner Music was going to talk about cooperation with an outsider, Ames raised his head and asked directly, "Does Bruno Song understand music? Let Warner Records cooperate with an Internet company that doesn't understand music?"

Ames directly threw the cooperation documents sent by the Saipan Music Store into the trash can, not even interested in meeting.

Warner Records didn't want to talk about cooperation with Saipan Music Store at all, and wasn't even interested in replying. The other major record groups were not much different, and had no interest in wasting time with Saipan Music Store.

Internet music sites began to pop up, and the Saipan Music Store can only be regarded as the humble one.

However, in the graphics card industry, news came out. Suddenly, the media broke the news that Diamond Graphics and Alcatel Mobile had reached a cooperation. The latter invested 5000 million US dollars in Diamond and became the second largest shareholder of Diamond with 25% of the shares.

Diamond did not deny the media's revelations. This news caused a storm in the graphics card industry, and major graphics card manufacturers such as Nvidia, 3DFX, and ATi were unavoidably nervous.

The graphics card industry looks lively, but compared to the mobile phone industry, it is now just a small business. Compared with the current major graphics card manufacturers such as Nvidia and 3DFX, Alcatel mobile phone belongs to a giant company.

Alcatel Mobile’s sudden investment in Diamond made several major graphics card manufacturers a little nervous. I don’t know if Alcatel Mobile is interested in graphics cards. You must know that PA Semiconductor is located in Alcatel’s mobile phone park, so it entered the graphics card industry. It seems to be the past.

But beyond the expectations of the graphics card industry, Diamond, which has received investment, seems a little quiet. Apart from claiming to develop a new generation of "monster" high-end graphics cards, there is no more movement in the graphics card industry, but it is upright. It was announced that Diamond will launch new products in the near future, which inevitably makes people a little confused, not knowing what Diamond is going to do.

On Song Yang's side, after receiving the news that the Saipan Music Store had failed at the five major record groups and returned without success, he didn't have much reaction.

The five major record companies that haven’t yet been beaten up, don’t know that people on the Internet are sinister. After they are beaten up by pirated music, they will remember the benefits of the Saipan music store that supports genuine music. …

When several major record groups are beaten to pieces, there is no need for the Saipan Music Store, as long as the sales volume of the MP3 OEM with Diamond is good enough, and then the Diamond MP3 is bound to the Saipan Music Store, no matter it is big or small. Small record groups, or singers, producers, etc., will come to cooperate with Saipan Music Store.

What Song Yang is concerned about now is how far Eric, who went to the old Europe, has achieved now, and how far he has fought with the LVMH group.

Even if the acquisition of Gucci fails, it will not have too much impact on Song Yang, but it will inevitably cause some troubles. Song Yang still hopes that RICK can get Gucci in his pocket with one blow, and Song Yang can also have an extra cash cow in his hands.

While thinking about it, the phone on the desk rang.

(End of this chapter)