On December 19th, Chinese music video platform YinYueTai announced a non-exclusive licensing partnership with Japan’s largest entertainment company, Avex. The two will be focusing on promoting Avex’s content as well as artists signed to the Japanese company in the Chinese market.

Avex is a Japanese pop music powerhouse, with many major artists under its management, including TRF, Every Little Thing, Ayumi Hamasaki, Do As Infinity, Kumi Koda, Ai Otsuka, AAA and Wagakki Band. Shortly after this announcement, all of these artists’ pre-existing and future content–mostly high-definition music video–will be published on YinYueTai.

Earlier in March, Avex has also established an exclusive licensing partnership with NetEase Music, another Chinese music streaming giant. These seemingly aggressive moves into the Chinese market can be largely attributed to the improved regulation of the online music market in China–a country that is becoming too valuable to be overlooked by foreign companies.

For the same reason, Chinese music and video hosting platforms have been busy expanding their own content, which is why partnerships with companies such as Avex have all of a sudden become increasingly desirable for these major Chinese platforms. Since its founding in 2009, YinYueTai has made a considerable effort in obtaining rights to music videos. In recent years, the platform has been slowly shifting from a pure MV hosting website to a community to engage music aficionados and fans, many of which being die-hard followers of Japanese pop music–yet another reason why this partnership makes sense.

(Translated by Kane Ge)