China's first hotel and restaurant background music infringement case officially tried

It was learnt from Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) that, Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court recently accepted the first national case relating to unauthorized use of background music in hotels and restaurants.

In its complaint, MCSC (the plaintiff) claimed that Hangzhou Hyatt Regency Hotel and Hangzhou 900 Bowls Restaurant (the defendants), without the authorization of MCSC and without paying fees, have been using the musical works managed by MCSC as their background music for a long time. The plaintiff therefore asked for orders to prevent the defendants from broadcasting those unauthorized music and make a compensation of 35,000 Renminbi yuan respectively.

According to an official from Hangzhou branch of MCSC, several rounds of negotiations had been done without any result. It was a surprise to MCSC that the copyright was not respected by the famous hotels such as Hyatt.

MCSC hopes that the case can be a signal to other business operators so that the copyrightable works are protected. In recent years, MCSC has signed licensing agreements with many hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, airline companies, to allow legal use of the music. So far, nearly ten thousand commercial spaces have contracted with MCSC for use of the copyrighted music.