China Entertainment 2000

After the thoughtful popular science, Kai West, who was playing with his iPod as if he had found a treasure, wore headphones, listened to music and browsed the web, and his face, which was gradually getting older due to the burden of life, had a more relaxed and comfortable smile.

Because he discovered the wonderful use of this iPod -

He can arrange and combine the songs he downloaded in order, so that he can listen to his favorite songs in order.

This is definitely an epic update for Kai West.

He can freely combine his favorite songs, and insert other people's songs in between Zhou Yi's songs, so that his ears can keep Zhou Yi fresh and not repeat the same song until he is sick.

"This feels so good! Jobs is a genius. How did he convince these international giants to license their record libraries? He even brought in Spike!"

"Indeed, this is so convenient. The only drawback is that you have to buy an iPod."

"That's fine. At least the iPod can be carried with you."

"I declare that Jobs' family has been temporarily resurrected with me!"

"Am I the only one who is worried about whether this will destroy the record market?"

"What should we do? This is the era of technology, this is the result of the application of technology, and it is the progress of the times. Can you still stop it? I think Spike is worthy of being Spike, he has such vision. "

"That's right, instead of all the money going to pirates and the singers not making a penny, it's better to support this Internet payment system. I think it's good. If you don't have enough money, just listen to less. Anyway, it's only $1.99 per song."

"Isn't Apple afraid that its music will be stolen?"

"You may have a misunderstanding of Apple's legal ability. Jobs has been prepared for it. He dares to fight against pirates if they dare to show up."

"..."

July 24, 2003, 9:30 am, US time.

When people like Kay West, who are far away from bustling cities such as New York and Washington, can hear the story of Ipod and get satisfaction from listening to music from Ipod, this evil wind built on the Internet era will eventually spread throughout the United States at a speed consistent with the characteristics of the Internet -

and even Europe.

Britain, which is in cahoots with the United States, has always been the vanguard of paying attention to the developments in the United States. After noticing that Apple's operation, which can be regarded as subverting the entire traditional record industry, has officially begun to be implemented, the European media has been the most active in reporting the developments.

All the big names and practitioners know that the physical record industry in Europe and the United States has been declining.

It is precisely because of this that top companies including Sony, Warner, Universal, EMI and even Disney are willing to license part of their copyright libraries to Apple, basically based on the idea of ​​opening up new markets.

Although the top big names can also see that the market is declining, no one is willing to accept Apple's invitation to officially move in, because it is too risky.

The only one who is interested, Madonna, has also cut off contact with Apple because she was ruthlessly suppressed by Zhou Yi in marketing.

"If Apple fails, it is equivalent to Spike's failure in this bet."

New York.

Even though he is currently caught in the vortex of the child molestation case, Michael Jackson still has a lawyer. He saw Zhou Yi's plan at a glance.

In a casual chat with his sister after dinner, the King of Pop, who is still in the mood to continue doing charity to gild himself, shook his head: "He gambled too much."

It is impossible for Zhou Yi to surpass the European and American legends by following the traditional path, because those people all have the title of "pioneer".

More importantly, the channels of traditional records are controlled by European and American elders, and Zhou Yi can't turn the tide in their hands.

"What if the bet fails?" Janet Jackson took a sip of coffee.

"Then his future albums will be boycotted by those channel dealers, and then negotiated, and finally a big piece of meat will be torn off." Michael Jackson, who also suffered a big loss in the traditional channel, had some memories in his eyes.

The traditional record channel actually makes a lot of money. Don't ask why, the answer is that the channel is king.

You can't just sell a record casually. You need someone to help you sell it, and you need offline stores one by one, which also caused the bulk of the album's profits to fall into the mouths of these channel dealers.

Sony, Warner and other giants are often exposed to various negative corruption incidents, which is that they are easy to embezzle and falsify data, so as to reasonably eat the meat of singers with a large number of their own channel dealers and third-party channel dealers.

Michael Jackson once thought about resisting, but he had no choice but to give up in the end, because he knew that he could not control the channels controlled by these old people with a keen business sense.

But now, it is obviously different from his previous era.

The rapid rise of Internet upstarts caught all traditional channel dealers off guard, and even major record companies were helpless.

This is a brand new era, a music era that is completely different from the 1980s and 1990s.

Whether the musicians of the new era in the future can rely on Zhouyi, a pioneer, to make a name for themselves and have an additional negotiation method and income channel from now on depends on the results of Zhouyi's cooperation with Apple this time.

"Do you think he can succeed?"

Janet Jackson was obviously tempted.

But Michael Jackson's shaking head made her feel cold: "It's impossible. The Internet is used to free. You can see that the software that was jointly suppressed by several record companies before will know. If you are really willing to pay, do you think they are unwilling to open it?

"There were so many Internet music software before Apple, some large and some small, who succeeded?"

Los Angeles.

As a person with a good sense of marketing, Eminem also talked about this matter at a party with singers such as 50 Cent. This madman and ruffian in the eyes of the outside world is very calm and sober at this moment: "So, he can't succeed."

"Spike is betting that he can call the shots in the Internet payment system, so that he can occupy more positions in negotiations with traditional channel dealers and get more concessions in the future." As a music businessman, the hip-hop godfather Dr. Dre made a rational analysis from a business perspective.

Just look at Linkin Park. Like Zhou Yi, they are also top Warner artists, but they still have not reached any cooperation with Apple. At present, they are not interested in Apple and have chosen to embrace traditional channels.

Scarlett Johansson in Washington, Kelly Brook in Birmingham, England, Mariah Carey in Hawaii, Johnny Depp in promotion, etc., all those who are familiar with Zhou Yi are paying attention to this silent battle of "challenging the old order".

They are all waiting, waiting for a result.

If Apple does not release the first-day battle report, it is enough to show that Zhou Yi has failed, they have failed, and the attempt of paid music on the Internet has failed.

Don't say that statistics are difficult, this is not a traditional channel. Yes For Apple, it is easiest to count its own paid download data.

At 10:08, it has been exactly 24 hours since yesterday.

Under the gaze of countless people in the European and American music scene and even the entertainment industry, and countless channel dealers, Apple's official website changed a page on time-

Zhou Yi put his hands in his pockets and stood sideways on the edge of the cliff with a smile on his face. Under the raging waves, that shining number almost blinded everyone who paid attention to the results at the first time!

2371512 songs!

In 24 hours, Zhou Yi sold a total of 2371512 songs!

Based on 1.99 per song, in just one day, these more than 2.37 million singles brought Apple more than 4.1 million US dollars in revenue!

"How is this possible?!"

"This is impossible!!!"

"Paid music is actually successful?!"

"Zhou Yi's gamble succeeded?! "

In just a moment, all the people who were watching this fight widened their eyes in disbelief!

What's going on?!

Are you kidding me?!

Did he really succeed?!

Even the King of Pop Michael Jackson was no longer calm at this moment. He squeezed his sister aside, leaned over the computer screen to look at the information on Apple's official website, and was so surprised that his mouth couldn't close -

"Unbelievable, unbelievable!"

You know, because Apple's platform commission model is much better than traditional record channels, the more than 4 million US dollars of income that Zhou Yi can get is much more than that of traditional channels.

After all, Apple's publicly disclosed commission is only 30%.

Not to mention that Zhou Yi definitely has preferential terms for profit sharing...

"He is very likely to get 10% or even a tiered clause that allows him to get all the income if he reaches a certain standard, otherwise a singer of his level would not be able to wade into this muddy water..."

In other words...

"Spike makes 3-4 million US dollars a day by relying on the online paid music system? !"

"Fuck! ”

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

“Oh my god! Unbelievable! Unbelievable!”

On July 24, 2003, at 10:08 am, the entire European and American music scene experienced a major earthquake from the inside out!

A large number of offline physical channel owners looked at this data, their hands were shaking...

“Impossible!!!”

“This is absolutely impossible!!!”

“Apple must have cheated!”

“I don’t accept it!!!”

“I absolutely don’t accept it!!!”