Economy

Copyright expo to browse digital music debate

By Lu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-01 16:14

Digital music is enormously popular, but copyright violations are rampant in China. Shao Chang / China Daily

China International Digital Music Festival will be held as part of the third China International Copyright Expo on November 20.

The event is expected to help the digital music market become more fair and healthy, Li Heng, president of the Beijing International Copyright Trade Center, said at a news conference last week.

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Promoting fairness in the digital music market and enhancing copyright awareness among users will help the industry achieve sound development, said Li.

Widespread use - and many say copyright abuse - of digital music is a hot topic in the music and Internet industries.

According to research firm iResearch, China's digital music market was valued at 1.65 billion yuan in 2008, which grew to 1.79 billion yuan last year and is expected to hit 1.95 billion yuan in 2010.

"In recent years, there have been various informal music charts in both traditional and network media," Li said. "Lack of impartiality has restricted the development of the industry."

An impartial list of China's authorized digital music will be released in the festival, she said.

Legal digital music websites top100.cn, music.sina.com.cn, a8.com and 9sky.com will provide the data for the list, which includes all digital music downloaded from November 2009 to October 2010 in China. The copyright expo organizing committee will tabulate the data.

With the theme of "the development of China's music industry in digital times", the China International Digital Music Festival will host discussions on issues about the legal environment, business model and online encroachment on the development of the music industry.

Government officials, representatives of foreign and domestic music management organizations, music companies and digital music websites will participate in the forum.

The first China Youth Original Music Competition will also be unveiled during the festival.

"There are now very few musical compositions that are appropriate for teenagers," Li said. "A large number of Hong Kong and Taiwan love songs popular with teens are not conducive to their healthy growth."

The competition will choose the outstanding original songs by young people throughout the country, which can also increase copyright awareness of the youth, Li said.