Depending on personalities and intake of alcohol, a karaoke night can see people demanding to be next on the mic or scurrying away before they’re forced to do something they’ll later regret.
According to reports, karaoke in the West may be set for a resurgence but in Asia, karaoke (’empty orchestra’) never went away. In Japan, it still receives an 80%+ approval rating among high school students with around half of 20 to 24-year-olds regularly taking part.
With a global market reported to be worth around $5 billion, karaoke may make people smile but for investors it’s a serious business.
Hong Kong Customs: Operation Magpie
Cases reported by Hong Kong Customs over the past month include raids on drugs labs, convictions for laundering huge sums of money, two investigations into large-scale tobacco smuggling, and an operation to combat the provision of infringing karaoke songs. While some may feel the latter is in strange company, the karaoke operation appears to have been allocated plenty of resources.
Described as a “territory-wide enforcement operation” it ran for almost a month (July 2 to July 25) and targeted restaurants and so-called party rooms, which are often booked on a private basis by groups of friends. According to the official report, Customs didn’t hold back.
“During the operation, Customs officers raided 31 party rooms and one restaurant in various districts, including Kwun Tong, Causeway Bay, Tsuen Wan and Mong Kok. A total of 39 sets of karaoke devices used for playing suspected infringing songs, four sets of game consoles with suspected pirated electronic games, and a batch of audio and video equipment and network devices were seized.
“The total estimated market value is approximately $1.1 million (US$140,820),” Customs reports.
While music rightsholders were almost certainly involved in the operation, none are mentioned by name. In the major markets most music falls under the control of less than a handful of headline recording labels, so a rough guess might not be too wide of the mark.
18 People Arrested
Hong Kong Customs reports that eleven men and seven women, aged between 23 and 49, were arrested on suspicion of violating copyright law and/or trading law. Seven of those arrested were in charge of running venues, six were company directors, and five are described as “shop proprietors.”
Two of those arrested were charged with copyright offenses, while the remainder were released on bail pending further investigation. Customs reports that the investigation remains ongoing, so further arrests aren’t being ruled out.
Interesting equipment seized
A basic pirate karaoke setup used to consist of a hardware player or PC, fueled by rows of cumbersome VCDs carried around in a big bag or kept in some kind of storage box. After switching to DVDs, there was much less weight to carry or space to find; with the advent of USB drives, much less still.
The nature of every raided venue isn’t provided in the report. However, customs say they uncovered something more advanced than usual.
“[C]ustoms detected the first-ever case of providing infringing karaoke songs by using streaming technology. Through in-depth investigation and with the assistance of copyright owners, Customs officers raided one data center and four party rooms involved in the case, seizing five karaoke devices preloaded with suspected infringing karaoke songs and a batch of network equipment.”
On closer inspection, it’s possible that one or two of the photos supplied by customs show examples of the streaming system in operation.
According to our rough translation, the text in the top left of the image says “Intelligent Song Request System” while the text on the right suggests a connection to WeChat.
The second image comes with no specific explanation either but the text at the top of the screen is not dissimilar to that highlighted above. When translated it says, “Welcome to the HD intelligent song request system” while other parts of the screen appear to have been covered for security reasons.
Potential punishments for operating a pirate karaoke system of any kind are fairly severe in Hong Kong.
Under local copyright law, “[A]ny person who, without the license of the copyright owner of a copyright work, possesses infringing copies of a copyright work for the purpose of, or in the course of, any trade or business with the view to it being used by any person commits an offense. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $50,000 (US$6,400) per infringing copy and imprisonment for four years,” Hong Kong Customs notes.
Those who engage in unfair trade practices, “including making false trade descriptions in relation to service, commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $500,000 (US$64,000) and imprisonment for five years.”
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Source : High-Tech Karaoke Piracy Crackdown, 18 Arrested and Streaming Servers Seized
