A KTV bar in Beijing Nov.30 - China's ubiquitous karaoke bars have taken first blood in their battle against royalty fees recently imposed by China's National Copyright Administration (NCAC).
On November 9, the NCAC unveiled a pilot scheme that required karaoke bars in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to pay 12 yuan (1.5 U.S. dollars) a day for each private room.
But the backlash from bar owners has forced the authorities to take a step back. "Those bars that can not afford the royalty charges, will not be forced to pay right now," Liu Guoxiong, head of the the China Audio and Video Association (CAVA) said.
The Guangzhou Cultural and Entertainment Industry Association, which represents the city's largest karaoke bars, led the opposition to the scheme and said its members would refuse to pay the fees.
Huang Shiqiu, head of the association, said the group believed the two national associations entrusted with the fee collection - the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) and the China Audio-Video Collective Administration (CAVCA) - did not have the legal authority to do so and the charges were unreasonably high.
The CAVCA is currently awaiting official approval from the government. In the meantime, it has entrusted CAVA to collect the royalties.
"We should pay the royalty charges but the problem is to whom and how we should pay," Huang said.
Associations representing local karaoke bars in Shanghai and Beijing voiced similar concerns.
Wang Xudong, a copyright lawyer in Nanjing, said that since copyright is a private right, royalty charges should be negotiated by the owners and the users rather than established by the authorities. He also pointed out that copyright protection expires 50 years after the author's death.
"The two associations can only collect royalties for copyright owners that have entrusted them to do so. In fact, the copyright of most songs played in karaoke bars has not been entrusted to the associations," Wang said.
"The per-room fee system is also unreasonable since it charges money for those songs which the association has not been entrusted to collect," he added.