Thursday, July 20, 2006

China Cracks down on Karaoke

Sploid reports:
China has already gotten internet giants like Yahoo and Google to aid in the censorship of its people. Now the government is cracking down on karaoke singers.

The Ministry of Culture has made it known that they are on the lookout for folks singing "overseas songs with unhealthy content," forcing people to sing only songs in "accord with relevant national rules and policies."

Liang Gang, director of the Cultural Market Development Center of the Ministry of Culture, is trying to sell the program as an effort to protect copyrights.

"Strictly speaking, no karaoke bar gets songs legally now in China," Liang said. "It's impossible for a bar to obtain the copyright of all songs that they want to play."

The aptly named Song Zhu, 18, is unhappy about the new restrictions. She fears what may happen if one her favorite Zhou Jie Lun songs were blacklisted.
Big Brother doesn't like bad singers.