Exclusive music copyrights could lead to piracy comeback, warns official

Music copyrights should not be exclusively authorized to online music service providers as it may lead to the revival of music piracy, warned a senior copyright protection official.

Duan Yuping, an official from China's National Copyright Administration (NCA), said in an interview with the People's Daily on Thursday that an NCA campaign launched in 2015 to regulate online music copyright has been effective. But new problems have emerged, such as online music service providers vying for exclusive copyrights, bidding up licensing prices and using music without permission.

Those problems are detrimental to the spread of musical works and may also lead to the revival of piracy, said Duan.

Duan added that exclusive authorization is not a common practice in the international music industry, and it is rare to see foreign music companies authorizing their entire music library to a single platform.

In China, most people are not used to paying for what they listen to and the government has been battling piracy of music.

In April, NCA publicized 10 cases involving copyright infringement in 2016. A smart phone app named "echo huisheng" was found to have provided unlicensed music to users, Xinhua reported.

It is estimated that China's music industry will generate 300 billion yuan ($47 billion) by the end of 2020, said Xinhua.