Is this ironic or what?
 

Today's LA Times has an article on an Asian fellow filing lawsuits against Karoke nightclubs in the US that play Chinese pop songs. Seems like few clubs are paying the license fees to this company (guy) who bought the US rights to these songs. He was seeking $25K/year from each establishment. Most aren't paying so he's trying to get city and county governments to shut them down.

The irony is the Chinese govt. doesn't recognize US intellectual property rights on its own soil, and in fact allows the manufacture and distribution of pirated videotapes, CDs, DVDs and books among other trademarks and copyrights.

Perhaps we should reciprocate with products and intellectual propertry from their country..... if only we could produce and sell them cheaper than they do.

I'm not xenophobic. I'm one of them (sorta).

Sherwood

Ok, so if you lived here in the US (you don't say if the Asian dude does or not) and happened to own the We'll Distribute Anything For A Price record label, and just happened to be the owner of the US distribution rights, would it be OK to not pay you? Just 'cause his government isn't willing to hear/try/whatever a case against him doesn't mean that he doesn't have his rights here, where it is much easier (sorta) to get the govn't to cooperate.

Sorry, I have a weird stance on IP ownership and laws in general.. too much time at http://yro.slashdot.org

That's the irony and the rub. The US govt. will probably honor the intellectual property rights of those artists in China and pursue those who choose not to license the right to repro them in their business even though no such reciprocity exists in the mainland.

I'm all for protection of intellectual property. The thing is, there is no official response from the Chinese govt. regarding this, and I doubt they will since that will then elicite an appropriate line of questions to them regarding this subject.

Yes, the owner of US rights to these Chinese tunes is from here.

Sherwood

karoke is only good after 7-10 drinks. then it still ain't that good.

On occasion, there are good singers. But from what I've seen of it, large amounts of echo and increased b.g. volume helps a great majority of participants. It's good, clean fun though I suppose.

Now how does "ina goda-davida" start?

Sherwood