TVB & HRKIA's 4 Year Royalty Dispute is Over, Announces New Agreement

The 4 year TVB and HRKIA ("Big 4" - Universal, Sony, Warner, EMI) royalty dispute finally comes to an end. Yesterday the press conference entitled Hand in Hand Pushing Hong Kong Real Music to Blossom. The new agreement was announced at the event. Singers including Kary Ng, Ella Koon, Shiga Lin, Pakho Chau, Jason Chan, Kelvin Kwan and many other attended to show their support. In the new agreement, singers can go on TVB programs, but cannot compete on JSG, unless they sign a "JSG Competition Contract". So far, even TVB's 'godson' and Universal singer, Hacken Lee, has not signed the contract.

TVB high executive Desmond Chan expressed HKRIA signed "a basket of contracts" to replace the "red form signing", which authorizes the singers to appear on TVB shows and removes the formerly complicated procedures. Also, TVB still insisted that the singers cannot appear on other TV networks for Cantonese interviews; If the singers wanted to participate in the JSG Awards, then they will have to sign a JSG contract and comply with the rules, but so far none of the Big 4 singers have signed the contract.

In order to welcome the Big 4 singers back, TVB will hold a large-scale music special on April 19th and there will be a "Red-White Contest" held on July 7th. There are no worries that this will upset the EEG singers because there are music shows coming one after the other.

Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI high executives were very happy to be able to 'break the ice' with TVB. They acknowledged TVB is an important media outlet and are satisfied with the financial piece of the business agreement. As to whether the singers will sign the contract to participate in the JSG Awards? The executives just lightly touched on it: "We will discuss this with an open attitude."

In regards to not being able to participate in the JSG Awards, the Big 4 singers expressed they will just have to wait for their respective record companies to make the decision. Jason Chan said: "Even if I can't compete for an award, I will still participate in the award ceremony, since it was that difficult to patch this relationship up." Pakho, Kelvin and Ella hoped they could shoot TVB series. Ella personally believed she's a lucky star because once she joined Warner, their relationship gets better and can help grow the singing profession. Ex-rumored pair Pakho and Kary met again, but did not avoid one another, they took pictures and shook hands.

Source: Mingpao
Translated by: aZnangel @ AsianEU Forum