Well-known music producers Sony, Warner and Go East yesterday partially won five lawsuits involving copyright infringement on music videos.
Shanghai No 1 and No 2 intermediate people's courts announced the results of the five lawsuits on the same day.
Party World, Holiday, Leader, Kylin and Padouva, five Shanghai karaoke bars, were ordered to stop using most of the disputed music videos and pay compensation of 1,000 yuan (US$120) for previously using them.
But not all aspects of the lawsuits were upheld.
One video, called Light Year, was copied from a concert, something the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court said was not a video that could be described as an original creation.
And neither of the courts supported the plaintiffs' appeal for a public apology.
Weng Cailin, a lawyer representing Sony Music Entertainment (Hongkong), said, "We are happy to see the courts find against the karaoke bars.
"But the compensation is much lower than we demanded, which was 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) for each video."
A manager with Holiday, however, said that the fine was still too high if in the future the bars had to pay for every use of every video.
"Thinking of the 20,000 to 30,000 videos each karaoke bar has, none of us can afford such a huge amount of money," he said.
(China Daily May 31, 2005)
