On 26 april, we will celebrate the twenty-fifth world intellectual property day. The theme of world intellectual property day this year was “intellectual property and music: the rhythm of feeling intellectual property”. Music, with its unique mix of notes and rhythms, speaks of the evolution of human civilization, full of emotions, as an artistic expression that transcends borders, nations and cultures. Here, we pay tribute to the universal language of music and to talented creators, inventors and entrepreneurs: you constantly develop new voices, styles and technologies to shape the future of music. Let's listen to the world's heart beats and feel the beats of intellectual property
Chinese operas, irish folk songs, brazilian samba music as a symbol of culture, every melody, every song is a cultural code of different nationalities and regions. From ancient times to contemporary societies, people of different ethnicities and faiths used music to develop feelings and build consensus to witness the continuation and development of national cultures. As a universal language, music resonates with its universal emotional resonance, linking people closely and promoting intercultural communication and integration。
At the end of the nineteenth century, edison invented the first phonograph, and music began to develop as a modern industry, free of the restrictions on transmission through live play. Looking back at each of the exciting leaps of more than a century has been both a reshaping of the whole spectrum of the music industry by new technologies and a change in the protection of intellectual property rights and the distribution of benefits among industrial parties. From physical records to digital music, to the ever-expanding artificial intelligence generation of music (ai music), a series of technological changes have not only contributed to the growth of music carriers, the use of scenes, the proliferation of creative forms, but also to the re-alignment of music creators, producers and distributors, thus continuing to boost the development of the music industry。
In the age of physical phonographs, from cylindrical phonographs to discs, from black tape records to cassettes and lasers, from fm radios to television media ... The continuous evolution of sound technology and the medium of transmissions led to the golden age of physical phonographs in the last two decades of the last century and to the progressive improvement of the copyright protection system in the music industry。
Prior to the gramophone invention, composers and publishers relied mainly on the sale of music scores for their benefit, so in 1831, when the united states first incorporated music works into copyright law, it granted exclusive rights to reproduce the distribution of music notes. After extensive debate over the invention of the gramophone, mechanical reproduction was included in the protection. The development of the recording industry has been accompanied by a series of exclusive rights to the protection of musical works, such as the right to perform, the right to broadcast and the establishment of an “exceptional” system for the unauthorized use of musical works to promote their dissemination and use. Institutional change and industrial development are mutually reinforcing, and the intellectual property rights regime creates a solid protection barrier for music creators, lays the foundations for music enrichment and balances interests, promotes healthy industrial development, and promotes music dissemination and cultural exchange。
Entering the age of the network, digital technology completely destabilized the 100-year recording industry, while the dissemination of pirated music through the network once had a huge impact on the music market. Until copyright legislation was improved in the digital age, digital copyright governance was vigorously advanced, and the digital music market was booming as a result of the rapid development of mobile media technology. The global music report 2025, published by the international association of phonograms, shows that, for the first time in 2024, streaming media music revenues surpassed the $20 billion mark, accounting for 69 per cent of total global recorded music revenues, with fee subscriptions becoming a central driver of industrial growth。
As the world's fifth largest music market, china's digital music market has undergone a luxurious transformation from chaos. In response to technological changes, in 2001 china amended the copyright act to introduce a new right to information network dissemination, providing an important basis for the creation of copyright rules in the digital music age. In response to the phenomenon of piracy on the music site at the time, the authorities have strengthened their supervision and, on a number of occasions, incorporated digital music into special operations to combat online piracy. On the basis of formalization, in 2015 the music website accelerated its consolidation, ranging from a “hundreds” to a “quartet” to a “quartet of power”, which resulted in an “official business, pay download” industry consensus. Today, the major digital music platforms are based on the real curvature, with flow assessment as their hub, promoting cross-industry links to music, and are working to optimize the distribution of copyright benefits, foster the development of original music and create a new multi-symbiotic culture of music。
At the moment, industrial change driven by the generation of artificial intelligence technologies will also reshape the ecological and industrial patterns of music creation. When the music, the words, the music is done, the ai virtual singer is perfect in reproducing the classic sound lines, the artificial intellectual symphony is amazing, and people are impressed by the efficiency of technology tools and the perfect integration of technology and art. However, when the country's 2-hour creation of ai is in the tens of thousands of times, and the bulk of the cheap works produced by ai “specific artists” abroad replaces the high-tax music produced by artists, the industry is also questioning the legitimacy of the unauthorized use of copyright-based training models to generate music, and whether an ai, algorithm-controlled music ecosystem betrays the “artist spirit”。
Ai empowers music, and the global music industry is once again at the intersection of technology-driven and content-restructuring, legal games. At present, some ai companies are trying to promote “exceptional” pathways for training models within the framework of copyright protection, but this has provoked opposition among artists. They believe that it is more important than ever to insist that real creators receive the rewards they deserve. How to find a balance between innovation and order in the age of artificial intelligence and to explore business models adapted to the development of new technologies has yet to be more sophisticated in the design and distribution of systems, providing a solid barrier to the reconstruction of the music industry. But no matter how it evolves, the core principles will not change: human intelligence remains the core value of legal protection, and technology will eventually return to the instrumentality of positioning。
As the twenty-fifth world intellectual property day approaches, we look forward to a future in which science and technology and art will be deeply intertwined, with a dynamic and changing music industry creating new possibilities。
