Thirteen star hotels here have agreed to pay for the background music they play inside their hotels in a move to better protect music copyrights.

On Monday, Shanghai Marriott Hotel Hongqiao signed an agreement with the Shanghai Office of Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC) regarding payments.

According to the pact, the hotel will pay 2.8 yuan (34 US cents) a month for each room, with the hotel's monthly payments totaling more than 900 yuan (US$108).

The MCSC has been in charge of collecting fees in the country, with its work in Shanghai beginning three years ago. The MCSC is the only officially recognized, non-profit organization for the collective administration of music copyrights in China.

"We started negotiations with the Shanghai Branch of China Tourist Hotels Association (CTHA) last year, and the first phase of our work is to talk with international hotel brands," said Fang Fang, representative of MCSC's Shanghai office.

"Shanghai has some 30 four- or five-star hotels with overseas investments, and we have finished talks with 13."

According to Fang, MCSC is planning to initiate talks with another 30 domestic hotels in the city.

Businesses in several Chinese cities now pay for the use of copyrighted music in China. Shanghai is one of them, but due to the complicated nature of the issue, work has progressed slowly in the past three years.

Fang says Beijing has more than 200 hotels that are paying for playing music.

In Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, there are only a dozen star hotels, but all pay the fees, she said.

The number of lawsuits over copyrights - including music copyrights - has jumped as people's awareness of music copyrights has grown, experts point out.

Yet many people still do not know enough about the issue, and why they should pay for the right to play such music.

Zhao Renrong, from the Shanghai branch of the CTHA, said hotels are not reluctant to pay. "The key lies in explaining the law to them. They did not know there was such a legal item."

According to China's current Copyright Law, the term "copyright" includes the right of performance by various means.

MCSC's Shanghai office revealed that they will make further efforts to contact department with regard to the copyright of the music played there.

Airline companies, trains and long-distance buses should also pay if they play music during their operations, she explained. "So far, Shanghai Airlines pays for that," she said.

MCSC has started to collect fees from entertainment venues in Shanghai since 2001. It did that together with the Shanghai Municipal Association of Cultural and Entertainment Industry.

(China Daily June 16, 2004)