From gaming to music streaming, the Chinese government has been hitting the technology industry with new rules, fines and a general crackdown designed to reset its compass for the coming years. Now it is turning its attention to… karaoke.
Fortune reports that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has announced plans to ban karaoke songs that “endanger national unity, sovereignty, or territory integrity; violate China’s religious policies and spread cults and superstitions; and advocate obscenity, gambling, violence, and drug-related crimes or instigating crimes”. The licensing companies that provide music to karaoke venues will now be responsible for policing those catalogues.
So far, it seems that this crackdown is focused on physical karaoke venues, but we’ll be interested to see how it extends to the hugely popular digital karaoke services in China. Tencent Music, for example, makes nearly two thirds of its revenue not from streaming, but from ‘social entertainment services’ including karaoke app WeSing.
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