More On Chinese Music Crackdown

If you’ve been following our coverage on the recent crackdown by The Chinese Ministry Of Culture on music downloads and foreign music companies operating in China (and if not you should), you’ll want
to read the comments of a Pacific Rim based Hypebot reader.  We published an exclusive unedited response to the government’s moves last week by Gary Chen the CEO of Chinese download leader Top100.cn and our reader cries foul:

"Gary Chen has opportunistically used the occasion of a new statement
by China’s Ministry of Culture to brazenly accuse other companies of
copyright infringement when it has been documented by Billboard, New
York Times and South China Morning Post t
hat his top100.cn has itself
been guilty of such a practice."

"A number of his comments smack of hypocrisy and it becomes obvious
that he is exhibiting traits of an opportunist political economist in
his skewed approach to copyright and I would like to point them out in
the interest of a balanced view for the uninitiated reader…" Read the full letter after the jump.

Gary Chen has opportunistically used the occasion of a new statement
by China’s Ministry of Culture to brazenly accuse other companies of
copyright infringement when it has been documented by Billboard, New
York Times and South China Morning Post that his top100.cn has itself
been guilty of such a practice.

A number of his comments smack of hypocrisy and it becomes obvious
that he is exhibiting traits of an opportunist political economist in
his skewed approach to copyright and I would like to point them out in
the interest of a balanced view for the uninitiated reader.

Hypocritical comment 1: "The big search engine companies no matter
Chinese firm and international firm like Yahoo are doing illegal search
and download here in China….There is one part in it about restriction
of foreign companies selling music online and in mobile sphere. That
happened also because certain international company use double standard
(legal business in America; illegal search and download in China) in
Chinese market and make government agency and value chain disappointed
and lose confidence in them." – Gary Chen

Hypocritical comment 2: In an interview with Hypebot on 30 Oct 2006,
Gary stated "Plus, please help us to clarify one more time. We do not
have Beatles for download in our website. Just log on our website and
you will find Chinese introduction of all great musicians like Beatles.
But when you click the track, it says clearly it is not available for
download. It is totally legal to introduce any musician and tell a
story about them. I do not understand why one or two international
journalist say so in their article. Do they really care about the
copyright protection in China and want to support a legit music service
company like us in China ?"
http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2006/10/part_ii_of_qa_w.html

Fact: Beatles digital tracks have been available FOR SALE from
top100.cn even as recently as this month (which I have bought as proof)
– and OTHER content owners have also complained that their music has
appeared illegally on top100.cn

Let’s be clear on this – as an entrepreneur he is to be lauded for
his attempts to build an online music store in China and he is also
entitled to cash in on the political economy of copyright but please
spare us the moral lecture on intellectual property. He is absolutely
right that there are major companies engaging in infringing activities
in China that new rulings will hopefully put right, but since top100.cn
is itself is engaging in ‘when in Rome…’ transgressions, he has
totally lost the moral authority to comment on the subject.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

– Maths