The copyrights of music used for next year's Beijing Olympic Games will be protected by the organizers, according to a protection plan set out yesterday by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC).

According to the plan, BOCOG will pay for music used at the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, cultural activities at the venues and during the medal presentation ceremonies, if the copyrights belong to others.

It is estimated the Beijing Olympic Games will include nearly 10,000 music works.

"BOCOG has made a great effort in the area of intellectual property rights protection and protecting copyrights is an important part of this," Liu Yan, vice-director of the BOCOG legal affairs department, said.

"There will be a large number and variety of musical works used at the Olympic Games, which makes our task more difficult. We have discussed this with the MCSC for nearly a year."

BOCOG has been commissioning songs for the Olympic Games since 2003 and has designated MCSC to manage copyright issues.

(China Daily November 9, 2007)