Chinese Gov’t to Music Websites: Delete These Songs by Sept 15, Or Else

China’s Ministry of Culture is cracking down on illegal websites and quasi-illegal songs. Yesterday, it published an announcement stating that unregistered music websites and music sites offering songs that haven’t yet been approved by the Ministry of Culture have until September 15th to clean up their acts. Beyond that date, non-cooperating sites will be prosecuted in accordance with the law.

Along with the announcement, the Ministry attached a list of 100 popular songs that haven’t yet been examined for content and are thus illegal for Chinese music websites to host. Most of the songs are by Chinese artists, but there are a fair number of foreign faces in the crowd as well, including Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and even the Backstreet Boys, who apparently never thought to clear the content of their smash-hit “I Want it That Way” with China’s Ministry of Culture (we can’t imagine why not).

Music hosting websites cannot examine songs for content themselves, nor can they request that the Ministry inspect them. Content owners must submit applications to the Ministry, then the content of their songs will be examined, and ultimately the songs are either banned or approved. Some of these songs may be in the process of being examined, but others are likely to remain de-facto banned forever. “I Want it That Way,” for example, was released in 1999. If Sony Legacy Records hasn’t submitted it to the Chinese Ministry of Culture for clearance by now, they’re probably not going to.

On the other hand, considering the Ministry released the list of songs as an old-school Microsoft Works file, it’s possible the government believes it is 1999 right now. Let’s all take a trip back with them, shall we?

OK, that was fun, but back to the present. If you want to know which songs are banned (until they’ve been cleared for content), you can see the full list here, and if you’re looking to tell on some illegal music websites, you can do that via this convenient Ministry form.

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