Music stops at some venues in copyright dispute

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-06 19:51

BEIJING -- Will funeral parlors in China soon have to pay copyright royalties when they play a dirge for the dead?

A legal copyright worker in east Jiangsu Province, Weng Lei, suggested the idea to the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC), the Beijing News reported on Saturday. It said the copyright group would use Nanjing as a pilot city for royalties from playing the funeral composition known as "Aiyue,"

Not so, said Liu Ping, legal department director of the MCSC.

"It's only one lawyer's personal opinion," he told Xinhua.

According to Liu, playing popular music in public places for commercial use is a violation of the Copyright Law. Copyright expires 50 years after the composer's death.

"Playing classical music is okay," Liu said. "But we found that most of the hotels and restaurants are playing songs by popular singers.

The association has 40 million songs from 5,000 artists for which it collects royalties.

Major corporations like Carrefour, Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, as well as the majority of four- or five-star hotels in Beijing, have paid the association for royalties.

Earlier this week, 200 hotels in Kunming, the capital of southwestern Yunnan Province, stopped playing background music when the MCSC demanded royalties. The organization, which is responsible for music copyright charges, asked the hotels to pay 1.75 yuan (0.25 US cents) per bed monthly for using background music that was protected by law.

The fact that the hotels stopped playing the music "is progress in itself," Liu said. "At least they realize they are infringing on the musicians' rights."

"But it's not a situation we would like to see," he said. Instead, the public awareness of copyright issues should be raised.

According to Liu, 80 percent of the royalties the MCSC collects go to the musicians, while 20 percent is kept by the MCSC for operation.

Founded in 1992 as a non-profit collective management organization for music copyrights on the mainland, MCSC has also been cooperating with its counterparts in 50 countries and regions on music copyright issues since its founding.