Popular Summary of the Core Content
The most “divided” company in the online literature circle lately is Yuewen: not long ago, its Qidian platform launched the strictest “AI-driven online literature cleanup” campaign in history, removing all AI-generated works that had even tens of thousands of subscribers. Leading authors like Tang Jia Sanshao publicly condemned this practice as AI plagiarism. However, its financial report showed a 230% increase in revenue from short dramas and AI-generated comics in the first half of the year, making it the only listed online literature company in the industry that makes money from short dramas. This seemingly contradictory strategy—using AI to make money while also opposing it—is actually a clever move by Yuewen, a company that has been in the online literature business for 20 years. It’s using AI as a tool to quickly monetize its existing IPs and make quick profits, but it’s absolutely unwilling to let AI touch the core of its content. Its biggest fear is that once its existing assets are exhausted, it won’t be able to produce new top-tier IPs like “Qing Nianyu” or “Guimi Zhu”.
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Detailed Analysis
1. Clarifying the Situation: Yuewen Is Not Opposing AI, but Choosing How to Use It
Many people were confused by the news: on one hand, Yuewen was criticizing AI for being used to write online literature, and on the other hand, it was making huge profits from AI-generated comics. These are two different things. What Yuewen opposes is the use of AI to create original online literature from scratch; what it uses most effectively is AI as a tool for producing comics. Previously, creating one episode of a comic required several days of manual drawing by artists, costing thousands of yuan. Now, AI can produce dozens of episodes in just a few days, cutting costs by 90% and increasing efficiency dozens of times over. AI does the “manual” work: it takes existing, popular online novels that have been proven to be successful by readers, generates the illustrations, adds the soundtrack, and edits the pacing, ready for release. It’s like having a pile of high-scoring test papers; AI just helps to quickly copy them out. Yuewen doesn’t need AI to come up with the stories; it benefits from the efficiency improvements without compromising the quality of its content. As a result, its AI-generated comics have five times the average viewership in the industry. In the first half of the year, 46 of its comics had over 100 million views, and 367 had over 10 million views, far outpacing its competitors.
2. Why Do Competitors Lose Money on Short Dramas While Yuewen Makes Profits? It’s All Thanks to a 20-Year-Old IP Library
Among the three listed online literature companies, Chinese Online and Zhangyue have nearly 70% of their revenue coming from short dramas, but they all lost money in the first half of the year: Chinese Online lost 43 million yuan, and Zhangyue lost 50 million yuan, mostly due to spending on traffic and advertising. For every 10 yuan spent, they only earned 8 yuan. Yuewen, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on luck. Other companies make short dramas by first creating content and then trying to find suitable IPs to match it, which is like throwing darts with their eyes closed—nine out of ten attempts fail. Yuewen, however, has a library of IPs that have been carefully selected by millions of readers over 20 years. It knows exactly what makes a story successful, which characters are popular, and what pacing keeps readers engaged until the early morning. With this data, the success rate of its short dramas is 60%, four times the industry average, allowing it to earn real profits.
3. The Quick Profit Comes with a Hidden Risk: Borrowing From the Past
Yuewen’s current success with short dramas is actually borrowing from its past assets. IP’s are not unlimited resources; they are consumable assets. A top-tier online IP can be monetized multiple times over a decade—first through subscriptions, then as comics, movies, games, and merchandise. For example, “Qing Nianyu” has been adapted into two seasons of movies, and more can be made in the future. However, by using these IPs for free promotional dramas, Yuewen is devaluing them. The audience’s interest fades quickly, and the same popular IPs are often adapted too many times, leading to fatigue. Additionally, Yuewen’s user base is declining: it has lost 1 million paid users and 5% of its monthly active users. The number of authors has also dropped from a peak of 700,000 in 2021 to 240,000 this year. Even the creator of “Dou Po Cang Qiong,” Tian Can Tuo Dou, has moved to a competitor. New, valuable IPs are becoming harder to develop.
4. The Strictest “AI Cleanup” Campaign Is Actually a Self-Defense Measure
Many think Qidian’s action against AI-generated literature is to protect authors, but the real purpose is to safeguard its own assets. If AI were allowed to create online literature freely, everyone would produce similar, low-quality content, and Yuewen would run out of its valuable IPs. Competitors like Jinjiang are more cautious, not even getting involved in short drama production themselves and strictly controlling IP licensing. They even sued for the adaptation rights of “Tong Tong Cang Bu Zhu,” fearing that their IPs would be degraded. Yuewen’s strict measures against AI-generated literature are to keep AI out of original creation, preserving the quality of its content and ensuring its IP’s value.
5. Yuewen’s Long-Term Concerns: Not About Quick Profits, but About the Next Generation of Valuable IPs
Yuewen is not like other online literature companies. Chinese Online and Zhangyue are new players investing heavily in short dramas, hoping to build scale before making profits. Yuewen, however, is part of a “old money family” backed by Tencent, with a 20-year-old IP library. Its core asset is its ability to continuously produce top-tier IPs. While it uses AI to make quick profits with comics, it strictly prevents AI from affecting its original content. Its long-term goal is to maintain a creative ecosystem that can produce new, valuable IPs like “Qing Nianyu” or “Zhuan Shi Zhi Shou” for decades. Its biggest concern is that if it runs out of valuable IPs in another decade, its wealth will be depleted. The real issue for a company with a long history is not the lack of quick profits, but the lack of successors to carry on its legacy.