Broadcasters are required to pay royalties to copyright holders if they play music on the air, according to a new regulation approved by the State Council.

The regulation to be effective January 1 stipulates that radio and television stations can pay music copyright owners fees calculated though using one of the three criteria, the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

The broadcasters can pay the copyright owners a fixed lump sum fee mutually decided by the broadcasters and copyright management organizations annually.

If they cannot agree on fees, they can pay the owners a portion of advertising revenues. For example, the copyright owners can get 0.01 percent of a station’s advertising income if music occupies less than 1 percent of program time.

Broadcasters could also choose to pay copyright owners based on the duration of music played during the program. Radio stations will pay 0.3 yuan ($4 cents) if they play music for a minute, and TV stations have to pay 1.5 yuan ($22 cents).

Music Copyright Society of China legal department head Liu Ping lauded the regulation.

"Paying the music composer fees by broadcasting organizations will promote the development of the music industry," Liu said.

Taihe Rye Music Chief Executive Officer Song Ke also supported the regulation.

"We can fight for the fees for the music composers. This is an improvement," Song said.

But at least one singer, Gu Kai, had reservations.

"We have to enhance public awareness of intellectual property rights. I bet that 99 percent of people in the nation believe that downloading music from the Internet and listening to MP3 should be free," Gu said.

"To the broadcasters, playing the music is actually doing a promotion. They will ask why they have to pay."

Gu also said many technicalities should be tackled before implementing the regulation including how the music composers will know that their songs are played.

Liu Deqiang, general manger of a Beijing-based entertainment production company, called for more government action to crack down on illegal downloading and copyright infringement.

Lin Haize, a veteran music program host, said collecting copyright fees from broadcasters would not be of much help to the music industry because many record labels will promote the songs through the web, but not radio and TV.
                                                                                    Source: Peopl's Daily Online