Music Individual Licensing Models and Competition Law

With the swift progress of Internet technology, the way to get access to copyrighted work is undergoing substantial change. A variety of licensing models, usually operated by intermediaries, such as Spotify or Pandora, have emerged. What are the impacts of such new models on the end users of the music? Will they generate anticompetitive concerns? The chapter examines the currently popular music licensing models from the perspective of competition law and concludes that the key players such as Apple and Tencent have a strong position in the music market. It is not certain whether such key players have a dominant market position, and this needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, some conduct of the licensing intermediaries may fall within the subject of antitrust scrutiny if the requirement of dominant position is satisfied. Particularly, in the new era of “crossover”, high tech giants such as Apple, Tencent and Alibaba are building up content libraries, and pose serious threat to their rivals without synthesized platforms. (Synthesized platform refers to the online services that provide a wide range of services, which may cover instant messaging, information portals, online games, online music, e-business etc. Such synthesizing has significant impacts on consumers’ switching cost.) Competition law should adopt a more flexible approach to define the “relevant market” in order to protect market competition.