Ximalaya.com, an app with more than 160 million listeners, was removed from the App Store in June. (Photo : Tech in Asia)
Aside from vicious competition and homogeneity in programming, China’s music apps are facing tougher scrutiny because of copyright issues. The National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) started a campaign to protect music copyrights on the Internet.
As part of its campaign, the NCAC obliged all online music platforms to stop providing musical works without authorization and remove all unauthorized musical content before the end of July, according to an online statement the administration released on July 9.
This weekend, the Xiami Music app will be back in Apple’s app store. The app, backed by China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, had a short absence in the app store.
The source, who denied to be named, declined to reveal the reason for the removal.
On July 10, NetEase Inc.’s Cloud Music app was also removed from the app store, denying issues related to copyrights.
The company’s senior director, Wang Lei, told the media that "the reason for it being removed did not involve copyright issues."
NetEase's press release said that the app was available again on Apple's app store from July 14, but the source declined to reveal the reason for the short removal.
The move comes as China's top copyright regulator tightens controls over domestic online music platforms.
With the fast progression of the Internet, patrons have slowly abandoned CDs and turned to online music platforms.
About 71 percent of the profit of China's recording industry comes from digital content, a local newspaper reported on July 13.
