Two Chinese governmental departments have planned to charge for nationwide karaoke system separately, causing disputes about whether they are struggling to monopolize the market.

The National Copyright Administration (NCA) announced July 20 it will publicize its own tariff for karaoke copyrights soon after the Ministry of Culture said July 18 it will create a unified karaoke system nationwide and charge the karaoke bar operators for each song downloaded.

Both claimed to protect the copyright holders' rights, but the charge standards will be different.

The administration stated that bar operators should pay on the basis of the number of parlors they own, while the ministry asked the operators to pay according to the times a song is ordered, said Wang Huapeng, spokesman for the China Audio-Video Collective Management Association, one of the NCA's executor.

Insiders claim the divided charges-to-be reflects a scramble between the two departments for possible economic interest.

Source: Xinhua