R2G — which has the exclusive publishing rights to all of Jay Chou’s titles for ringtone applications in China — has won 50,000 RMB (US$6,250) from China.com for “the illegal use of ringtone applications for 18 songs by popular Taiwanese singer, Jay Chou in violation of China copyright laws”. Apparently this makes it the first company in China to win compensation in a lawsuit on the violation of music publishing copyrights. That’s specifically using the written music to create another piece of work, rather than using the recorded soundtrack…earlier this year another company won RMB9,000 for copyright violation of 3 music videos.
The compensation is supposed to be calculated on the profit or loss involved in the copyright infringement, but “due to the dearth of accurate figures available for these kind of piracy cases, previous reference cases have involved the violation of recording rights or MV’s copyrights”.
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