Chuck Berry Wants His Karaoke Cash

[Mulboyne]

Reuters: Singer Chuck Berry sues karaoke distributors
LOS ANGELES - Rock 'n' roll pioneer Chuck Berry has sued three leading karaoke music distributors, claiming they sold sing-along versions of his most popular hits without paying royalties or obtaining licenses. If he prevails in court, Berry, 79, stands to gain several hundred thousand dollars for each of his songs, including such hits as "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene" and "My Ding-A-Ling"...more...

[Mulboyne]

ChinaDaily: Guangzhou mulls royalty fee on karaoke singers
People who sing in karaoke bars in south China's Guangzhou City may have to count the number of songs they choose as local authorities are mulling over imposing a one yuan (0.13 US dollar) royalty fee on each song, according to a newspaper report. According to the Beijing-based Workers' Daily, the Guangzhou municipal government is planning to install in the city's karaoke bars a monitoring system to record the hit rates of songs and singing time as a basis to charge consumers. The price charged for each song is set temporarily at one yuan per song. The move, designed to settle long-standing intellectual property rights (IPR) disputes over the use of songs in karaoke bars, is expected to bring an annual several billion yuan of profit to the city's music industry...more...

[Mulboyne]

People's Daily: Two Chinese gov't bodies jockey for position in karaoke market

Two Chinese government bodies have come up with separate plans to charge karaoke bars royalty fees, causing a turf war. On July 18 the Ministry of Culture said it would create a unified karaoke royalty fee system and charge karaoke bar operators for each song downloaded. Then on July 20 the National Copyright Administration (NCA) announced its own karaoke copyright fee system. The moves are both said to be aimed at protecting copyright holders' rights.

Insiders say the separate proposals, with their different fee mechanisms, reflect a tussle between the two departments. Collecting copyright fees is a potentially lucrative business. The NCA insists bar operators should pay on the basis of business volume, while the Ministry wants operators to pay according to the number of times a song is ordered, said Wang Huapeng, spokesman for the the China Audio-Video Management Collective (CACMC), one of the two payees approved by the NCA. The other approved payee is the Music Copyright Society (MCS), a body that acts on behalf of music composers and writers...more...