Net music power in China
p2p news / p2pnet:- Thanks to the Net, the world is spinning out of the control of the people and entities who used to run it.
Feeling this the most, for the moment, are the corporate entertainment and software industries as they fight a desperate, losing battle to keep things they way they used to be.
But information is power and the ‘traditional’ media no longer control its flow and, almost paradoxically, young performers in Communist China, home to one of the most repressive regimes anywhere, are among those showing what can be done, even under a dictatorship.
Dao Lang, a singer from Northwestern China’s remote Xinjiang region, found fame on the Net and others are using the online music world to go where they never could have gone before.
Xiang Xiang, 21, is China’s number one internet pop star, says the BBC. She uses headphones and a lip mic to sing to a backing track on laptop editing software and she`s so far notched up a billion downloads from admirers in China, Singapore and Malaysia, says the story.
And she offers her music for free, saying it’s unprofitable to publish a song on the internet. “There’s no money,” the BBC has her saying. “It’s purely a kind of communication. I get feedback and suggestions or comments on my work and then I can make changes.
For now, her revenue come solely from advertising. But like Dao Lang, Xiang Xiang has been signed up by a promoter and producer and, If online music stores catch on, the internet, could be a key revenue stream for tomorrow’s stars, says the Beeb adding, Once the Chinese have a way to make small online payments, Xiang Xiang could be earning cash, while she dreams up her next quirky offering.
Because micro-payments are on their way to becoming the norm and in fact, p2pnet’s Alex H is working on a P2Pay idea.
Meanwhile, these Chinese entertainment entrepreneurs are using 21st century technologies to make themselves heard to their fans not only in China, but around the world.
And what applies to music can apply equally to information and news.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
fame on the Net – Net Success, China style, July 31, 2005
BBC – Chinese pop idol thrives online, September 13, 2005
becoming the norm – P2Pay: Alex’s micro-payments, September 5, 2005
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:12 am
Oh, so *this* is where the original article came from!
I saw the same text on three new Blogspot blogs today, each of them getting ad revenue for the text. But you’re the one who actually wrote it, now it all makes sense.