6,609 songs were removed from the KTV, and "Ten Years" and "Bubble" were both affected. | bangdaslot, mgm klub slot

On November 5, a hot search appeared on the homepage of Bange's Weibo, and the ranking jumped all the way to No. 1, staying at the top until early this morning: more than 6,000 songs were removed from the KTV. Among the songs that have been removed from the shelves, popular songs such as "Ten Years", "Bubble", "I Will Love You Even to Death", "Listen to the Sea", "King of Karaoke", etc. are prominently listed. Many media headlines use: Can you still order what you are good at?

Another question also popped up in Bongo's mind: Why were these songs taken off the shelves? Who led this delisting incident?

Why does a non-governmental organization have the right to remove more than 6,000 songs from KTVs across the country?

This delisting incident is undoubtedly caused by copyright issues: the China Audiovisual Copyright Collective Management Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Audio Collection Association") issued an announcement requiring KTV terminal production managers and karaoke operators to delete or not provide more than 6,000 music and television works to consumers before October 31 this year.

At first glance, this is a good thing. After all, copyright protection should be supported. Even if the removal of more than 6,000 songs will cause some trouble to ordinary consumers in the short term, it is still conducive to the healthy development of the industry. Unexpectedly, however, when Bang Ge discussed this with a music creator in the industry, the other party did not buy into the "Music Collection Association" that made the announcement: This association is not actually a national copyright protection agency. It was previously exposed by CCTV that after charging high copyright fees, it did not pay the singers. I reserve my opinion on where the money will go in the future.

Such comments from industry insiders caught the attention of Bang Ge, and we immediately found the official Weibo of the Audio Collection Association to check its announcement in response to the incident.

As we all know, KTV needs to obtain authorization in accordance with the law to use other people’s music works. But the number of KTVs across the country can be said to be massive, and the works that KTVs need to use are also massive. In actual operations, it is not realistic for operators to obtain authorization one-on-one by themselves.

It was against this background that the Audio Collection Association was established. We checked the information on its official website. According to the information, the association is a membership system. After registering as a member, the association can help you conduct unified copyright management, authorize works for KTVs across the country, or take corresponding rights protection measures. But what surprised Bang Ge was that the 6 items that were removed from the shelves this timeNone of the copyright owners behind the 609 songs is a member of the Music Collection Association.

In other words, the Music Collection Association's scope of rights should be to help its members authorize and protect their rights, but this time they issued "removal notices" to 6,609 songs that they should not have control over...

This news was confirmed in the response announcement on the official Weibo of the Audio Collection Association:

This made Bang Ge couldn’t help but have a question: If I am not a member of the Music Collection Association, can my songs not be played in KTV? What kind of organization is the Music Collection Association? How can it have such great power to remove works by non-members?

In this regard, we found the "Articles of Association" of the Music Collection Association on its official website. The general provisions of the charter clearly state the nature of the Music Collection Association: This group is a national, non-profit social organization voluntarily formed by holders of audio-visual program copyrights or copyright-related rights according to law.

A voluntary membership-based non-governmental organization, from a legal perspective, should not have the power of administrative enforcement. According to common sense, it should not have the right to remove the works of "non-members". In the announcement of the response from the Audio Collection Association, the problem was described as follows:

In this regard, Bange consulted legal experts, who said that the separate lawsuit filed against the KTV operator by the rights holders of more than 6,000 songs or their entrusted agencies is independent of the Music Collection Association in terms of legal relations and has nothing to do with it. However, the announcement did not mention whether the Music Collection Association has an entrustment relationship with the rights holders or agencies of these more than 6,000 songs. Therefore, we do not know whether the Music Collection Association's "removal notice" may have accepted the authorization or entrustment from the song rights holders themselves.

It has been questioned by many media and exposed by CCTV. Where does the high copyright fee go?

200In 6 years, the National Copyright Administration stipulated that karaoke began to charge a song copyright fee of 12 yuan per hour per private room. Our daily expenses for going to KTV include this part of the copyright fee. So where does this part of the copyright fee go after it is collected? According to the practitioners at the beginning of the article, Bang Ge consulted a lot of information and found that this is not the first time that the Audio Collection Association has been at the center of public opinion.

In 2009, CCTV reported in multiple columns on the collection of karaoke copyright fees by the Music Collection Association; the "Today Observation" column of CCTV 2 also broadcast a special news program "Copyright Fees or Protection Fees", inviting two experts to focus on the issue of karaoke copyright fees and their distribution.

According to reports at the time, the Music Collection Association began collecting KTV and karaoke copyright fees in 2007. By 2009, the copyright fees collected had reached 80 million yuan. However, the use and distribution of this money was very opaque. Many singers said they did not receive the remuneration they deserved. However, the Music Collection Association, as a collective management organization, charged astronomical management fees of up to 50%.

In an interview at the time, the Music Collection Association was unwilling to elaborate on the charging method and the method of returning copyright holders. However, an industry insider revealed to a CCTV reporter that the fees were collected through a company called "Tianhe Culture". According to public information, the company was established in August 2007 and was entrusted by the Music Collection Association to collect karaoke copyright royalties. The Audio Collection Association is responsible for licensing, and Tianhe Culture is responsible for charging. The two form a KTV song copyright charging system.

At that time, Wang Ziqiang, director of the Copyright Management Department of the National Copyright Administration, believed that the Music Collection Association's approach was inappropriate. In an interview with reporters, he said, "The collective management organization is a non-profit organization and cannot organize enterprises to collect fees. It can only establish its own collection team. The entity of charging is yourself, and you cannot have a third party come out."

That was the most controversial time caused by the Music Collection Association. Since then, many media have followed up and reported on the content related to the collection of copyright fees by the Music Collection Association. As early as 2008, Dong Zhengwei, a lawyer from Beijing Zhongyin Law Firm, reported to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission, requesting anti-monopoly enforcement against the Music Collection Association’s collection of copyright royalties from the KTV industry.

In the past two years, the Music Collection Association has been questioned more intensively. In 2017 and 2018, KTV jointly sued Tianhe Company (the authorized charging unit of the Music Collection Association) for industry and price monopoly, but in the end, Tianhe won the lawsuit.

Interestingly, the cooperation betweenYinji Association and Tianhe Culture has never stopped in 11 years from 2007 to 2018. But not long before Bang Ge published this article, a latest announcement appeared on the official website of the Audio Collection Association, terminating the commissioned cooperation with Tianhe Culture.

It’s not that the songs that have been removed from the shelves can no longer be sung. Copyright protection has a long way to go

For the healthy development of an industry, 6,609 unlicensed songs have been removed from KTV and deserve support. However, the standardization and transparency of copyright charges are also areas that should be paid attention to.

During this turmoil, Zhou Yaping, who was certified as the vice chairman of the Audio Collection Association, also made a Weibo statement that also aroused the dissatisfaction of quite a few netizens:

Zhou Yaping said: He hopes that rights holders will join, but the consequence of not joining is that "the work will be abandoned outside the karaoke channel"

In the process of writing this article, Bange downloaded the complete list of 6,609 songs that were removed from the shelves this time, and found that only certain versions of the songs were actually removed. For example, Jay Chou's songs such as "Confession Balloon" were removed from the shelves, and only the first season version of "China's New Singing" was removed from the shelves.

Although such version restrictions make many friends feel like a "false alarm", Bange would like to remind thatThe purpose of the copyright system and the objects to be protected are the interests of creators and copyright owners. The interests of people determine their living environment. How can the development of the music industry begin if practitioners cannot survive?

The road to music copyright protection in China is still long and long.

[Source: Chuangye Bang]