Hong Kong customs arrests 18 in raids on karaoke rooms allegedly playing songs illegally
- Authorities seize HK$1.1 million worth of hardware and new technology that can stream copyright-infringing songs from remote locations
Hong Kong customs has raided 31 party rooms and a restaurant where karaoke songs that allegedly infringed copyright had been played with online streaming technology were discovered for the first time.
Officers arrested 18 people and seized HK$1.1 million (US$141,000) worth of equipment during a citywide operation this month.
“With the summer holiday beginning in July, we discovered party rooms and restaurants that provided karaoke songs for customers that infringed copyright law,” Shek Ka-yin, divisional commander for intellectual property technology crime investigation, said on Friday.
“People involved in the case put efforts into setting up a remote data centre to hide machines that stored infringing karaoke songs, with the purpose of evading customs’ investigation and increasing the difficulty of discovery.”
He explained that while customers at karaoke venues in past copyright infringement cases usually selected tunes using a machine that was preloaded with songs, this was the first time customs had cracked down on premises that allegedly offered music that flouted intellectual property laws using online streaming technology.
Shek said the operation was conducted between July 2 and July 25 in districts such as Causeway Bay, Kwun Tong, Tsuen Wan and Mong Kok.
