Practitioners debate recording rights, royalties

More than three decades of reform and opening-up have led to China's rapid development, including in some key sectors of the copyright industry that covers art, radio, film and television. A long debate on the issue continued during the recent China Broadcast Right Seminar held in Beijing, where participants called for legal protection for recording artists.

According to Guo Biao, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's chief representative in China, an international standard for broadcasting and public performance rights for sound recordings has been widely respected around the world since the Rome Convention of 1961 and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996.

At least 146 countries have recognized the standard and formalized it in legislation, most recently Indonesia. However, China has not adopted the standard to protect the broadcast and public performance rights of recording artists.

"From 1980 to 1996, China's record industry developed quickly and healthily. But with the fast development of the Internet in China since 2000, copyright violations of recording artists have been very rampant. It's very urgent and necessary to have broadcast and public performance rights protected by laws," says Guo.