Sohu: full speed into Internet Video – part 1. more IP protection in China

One can find my last post on the state of video industry here:
http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2009/02/chinas-video-and-music-web-site-survey.html

This is the first part of a 2 part article. From the above article, one can find the internet video industry is dominated by the young startups. The traditional portals such as Sina and Sohu can’t compete at all. Tencent fares better because it can rely on its powerful QQ instant massager to help push its new products. But still, Tencent is an also-ran.

But the real reason that the portals are not doing well is because the lack of IP protection.

From the following article:
http://it.sohu.com/20090409/n263287553.shtml

While it is easy for the young startups to broadcast unlicensed video contents (TV, Movies), it is starting to be difficult for the portals to do so. Therefore, the portals are in a major disadvantage.

But China starting to emphasis IP protections for its own video contents. Many TV stations and movie studio in China are starting to enforce their own right, the petulant might have move to the side with more money.

In this case, the portals definitely hold all the cards. Sohu has more money than they know how to spend, it will benefit them the most. But Sina, Tencents, and Ntes can benefit as well.

In the above article, Sohu is busy buying up contents from Chinese TV stations and movie studios.

Again, this may be a case of great long term plus and short term pain.


The following more articles shed more lights on this subject. But it is late and I am not going to talk about them.
http://it.sohu.com/20090411/n263326266.shtml
http://it.sohu.com/20090411/n263326274.shtml

Sohu actually sued three Chinese internet video companies. Tomorrow I will talk about that in the second part of this article.