Law revision could muzzle China's music industry
- By Ember Swift
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 26, 2012
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Ember Swift is a Canadian musician and writer who has been living in Beijing since 2008. |
The revision to the existing Chinese copyright law that was proposed on March 31 by the National Copyright Administration poses a great threat to the music-makers of this country, songwriters and composers alike. It embodies all that has gone wrong with the music industry in the past decade and represents a dim future for the Chinese music community.
In China's current (unrevised) copyright legislation, it is not permitted to use recordings of musical works without the permission of the copyright owner. Once granted, a one-time fee could be negotiated between user and owner, the details of which would be strictly between the two parties.
The proposed new revision, however, takes away this basic right. The revision states that songs may be used without the permission of the original author if they have been published for at least three months or more. Those who wish to use the songs would have to contact the National Copyright Administration governed by the State Council and then specify the original author and source of the material. Reusing the material requires a fee to be paid to the copyright collective management organization (currently China Audio-Video Copyright Association is the only such organization – the editor) and then it is this organization that would be responsible for transferring payment to the original authors.
For the past several weeks, this has been a hot topic within the heart of Beijing's contemporary music scene. Band members of the country's musical epicenter are conscious of the fact that the meager control they have over their intellectual property may soon be swept out from beneath them.
Unlike Western countries, the sale of recorded music has never really been an income source in China. Back when there were street sellers of black market CDs and cassettes that had been salvaged from overseas returns absorbed by China for the recycling industry, their plastic cases hole-punched to identify them as such, China was just beginning its race in the world of piracy and was already out in front. Its preeminence has not yet waned.
While some early Chinese acts did sell fairly well in the 1990s, modern acts have never been able to rely on their record sales to support them. Even active bands with multiple album releases, international touring experience and thousands of fans on the mainland alone rarely associate their income with copyright.
Free downloads are endorsed here as a way of life. Google and Baidu have negotiated deals with foreign and domestic music labels to enable free online access to millions of songs with a quick click on the download icon. In this climate, bands can only sustain on performance fees. When they can secure the occasional licensing fee that comes from the negotiation of the use of their recorded work, for which they are the copyright owners, it's a bonus.
The new revision would strip away the only protection they have.
The point of this revision, says the government, is to reign in on piracy. It sounds good in theory, especially the part about users being forced to compensate authors, but conversation among contemporary musicians reveals the inherent issues with this change.
Firstly, after three months, the exclusive control over who can use their work becomes that of the government. The songwriter would have no rights to deny its use even if the user was in direct conflict with the work's ethos.
Secondly, they have no right to decide how much their music is worth as per the context of its use. Currently, there is no clear indication as to how much artists should be compensated, or even if they will be uniformly compensated.
Thirdly, in a society in which government transparency is not part of the system, no one trusts that they'll ever see those copyright fees that are intended for their pockets, and they'll have no recourse to seek them out either.
In response to a revised copyright law, China's hotbed of piracy is unlikely to cool overnight. Instead, songwriters will be less motivated to write and record original material not only for fear that their songs will cease to be their property in a legal context after a mere three months, but that piracy will persist as it always has, thus making their songs fair game for anyone to use without discretion.
Keep in mind that these laws would also apply to foreign music distributed in China, a contentious issue for large music labels in the West. As this is only a proposed revision, China is seeking opinion from industry both domestically and abroad. The time is now to voice our protests.
In this modern, digital world in which the value of recorded music has become nearly indiscernible, it is laws like these that disable even the faintest hope for sustainable careers among existing and future songwriters and composers.
Ember Swift is a Canadian musician and writer who has been living in Beijing since 2008. She and her husband, a prominent Chinese musician, have now welcomed their daughter into the world, born in January 2012. For more information about Ember Swift and her life and work, please visit: www.emberswift.com
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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