Three karaoke houses in Dalian have been ordered to pay more than 45,000 yuan to Beijing Tianyu Tongsheng Information Technology Co Ltd for copyright infringement.

The Beijing firm, authorized to maintain copyrights for many digital music producers, filed the infringement complaint against the karaoke operators with a Dalian court earlier this year, claiming that unauthorized use of its portfolio of music videos "severely violated" the rights of copyrighters.

The company also asked that defendants be required to delete the infringing items from their playlist.

The defendants then lodged an appeal to a provincial court, which upheld the lower court decision.

(Source: China Daily)