BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- A hotel and a restaurant in Hangzhou of east China's Zhejiang Province have been involved in a lawsuit for playing music in a public place for commercial use but refusing to pay copyright royalties.
The Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) has asked the Hangzhou Hyatt Hotel and a local restaurant group named Jiubaiwan to stop using the music and pay compensation of 35,000 yuan (5,100U.S. dollars), China Daily reported Wednesday.
According to Liu Ping, director of legal affairs department of the MCSC, public education is needed to make more Chinese realize that playing music in public places for commercial use is a violation of Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China.
"It is the first charge of its kind, which aims to kick off a nationwide campaign to improve people's awareness of copyright law," Liu was quoted as saying.
"Copyright expires 50 years after the composer's death, and the commercial users are not only asked to pay for using Chinese popular music but also foreign music," he said.
Founded in 1992 as a non-profit collective management organization for music copyright on the Chinese mainland, the MCSChas been cooperating with its counterparts in 50 countries and regions on music copyright issues since its establishment.
Around 10,000 hotels and restaurants in China, the majority four-star or five-star hotels in big cities, have paid the association for music royalties, Liu said.
"If the local hotel association had appropriate regulation, we would prefer to pay music royalties," a woman who works for the public relations department of Hyatt Hotel, but refused to be identified, told China Daily.
According to Liu, 80 percent of the royalties the MCSC collects go to musicians, while 20 percent is kept by the MCSC for operations.
