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NetEase Cloud Music accused Tencent Music Entertainment of plagiarizing its mobile app design and unfair competition practice; thus, it has filed a suit to make things right. The legal battle has further intensified the rivalry between the two Chinese tech giants.
NetEase Cloud Music and Tencent Music have long been competing in the business. They are also always up against each other in trying to sign up well-known musicians and increasing the number of their users.
As per Reuters, NetEase Cloud Music said that there are features on Tencent Music’s suite of music streaming apps that let its users avoid or bypass copyright restrictions. The company said that with this feature, users are still able to play songs that are licensed by NCM.
"We urge TME to immediately rectify its products and businesses and stop all behaviors of unfair competition," NetEase Cloud Music post on its Weibo account reads.
It was noted that Tencent Music was also fined last year by the country’s anti-trust regulatory board. Apart from the fine, the company was also prohibited from signing exclusive music copyright agreements, which caused it to terminate all such deals.
At any rate, Market Watch mentioned that the company further shared on Weibo that Tencent Music Entertainment has been allowing the streaming of songs that were licensed only to NetEase’s Cloud Village Inc. unit. The music streaming service added that TME copied some features and even the design of its app.
With these complaints, NetEase Cloud Music is urging Tencent Music to put a stop to all of its unfair competition practices. The company also called on its rival to fix its products and businesses.
In its response to the call, the spokesperson of Tencent Music said that NetEase Cloud Music’s statement is just a “staged trick.” It appeared that Tencent Holding’s music unit thought it had done nothing wrong and denied the accusations by saying it "believes in the justice of the law."
Meanwhile, Tencent Music Entertainment is currently the largest music streaming service in China. In 2021, the company grew by 7.2% to $4.9 billion. As for NetEase’s music division, it has also flourished with a 43% surge to $1.1 billion last year but has been posting losses as well.
