News Releases

August 24, 2015
Japanese Society for Rights of Authors,
Composers and Publishers
（JASRAC）

JASRAC Accuses Man of Possessing Unauthorized Recordings
for Distribution at a Karaoke Class

Today, JASRAC filed a complaint with the Nakagawa Police Station in Aichi Prefecture against a 71-year-old man residing in Nagoya City, who possessed unauthorized recordings including copyright works administered by JASRAC that had been reproduced for the purpose of distributing them in a karaoke classroom, for copyright infringement (possessing unauthorized recordings for distribution purposes).

This man copied popular songs from cable broadcasts and karaoke machines onto CDs and other media without authorization and possessed the recordings to distribute them at karaoke classes to teach his students how to sing. As a lecturer, he organized such classes once a week outside the business hours of his own karaoke cafe.

He had been infringing copyrights for ten years by creating and distributing recordings without authorization, and the number of copies created and distributed without authorization reached at least 4,800. It has been revealed that they included a total of 20,000 copyright works administered by JASRAC.
On June 17 of this year, when it confirmed the above-mentioned violations had been committed, JASRAC warned this person to cease committing such violations immediately, but he later continued to copy and distribute unauthorized recordings. Therefore, JASRAC decided to file a complaint against him for copyright infringement.

There seems to be no end to the cases in which organizers of karaoke classes and owners of karaoke cafes and other restaurants reproduce copyright works administered by JASRAC onto CDs and other media and distribute them without permission to students as practice material and customers as part of their services.
Since the spread of illegal CDs, DVDs, and other media cause tremendous damage to copyright holders, JASRAC will strive to disseminate information on music copyright to the general public through public relations activities in an effort to eliminate similar violations.

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