At the Second China Music Industry Conference in Beijing on Friday, representatives of music companies, copyright agencies and law firms called for stronger enforcement and awareness to better protect music copyrights.

"Infringement on music IP - from pirate CDs to free online music services - has long troubled China's music industry," said Zhan Hua, CEO of Trmusic Co.

"The penalty for infringing on music copyrights is low on the Chinese mainland," said Billy Koh from Singapore, founder of Amusic Rights Management Co.

He added that for music websites, the cost is often "simply stopping the pirate service".

China's Copyright Law stipulates that people who disseminate sound recordings over information networks without authorization should assume civil liabilities including stopping the infringement, correcting the influence of copyright infringement, apologizing and paying damages.

But "damages for music copyright infringement are low and courts do not have a standard for damages", said Zhao Chengwei, a lawyer from Beijing Yingke Law Firm.

He acted in a number of music copyright infringement cases, with 110,000 yuan ($17,757) the largest amount in compensation. Most damages awarded were less than 1,000 yuan.

Yet the cost of defending rights is not low, so a number of copyright owners just accept infringement, said Zhao.

"What's exciting is that the latest amendment draft of the Copyright Law has increased the ceiling for damages from 500,000 yuan to 1 million yuan and included some more punitive clauses," Zhao added.

Some government agencies also help protect copyrights of songwriters, singers and music companies.

One is the Copyright Protection Center of China, which registers music copyrights and monitors online piracy, said Zhang Jiandong, an official from the center.

"We plan to build a copyright settlement center that helps parties get what they deserve," said Zhang. "The center will be based on technologies used in copyright settlement centers in the United States."

China Music Industry Park and the Beijing Municipal Copyright Bureau jointly held the one-day conference last week as part of the ninth Beijing International Cultural & Creative Industry Expo.

"In South Korea, what's most important in the music industry is to safeguard the rights of copyright owners, and they must speak for themselves and have a strong sense of copyright protection," said an official from Korea Creative Content Agency, a government department governing cultural content.

He said he hopes China and South Korea will cooperate to set up a better system for protecting copyrights and help copyright owners get what they deserve.

Koh from Singapore said China has excellent, creative musicians, many born after 1990. If they cannot get fair pay for their work, the quality will suffer, he said.

"Downloading songs in China will possibly be charged from the second half of 2015," Yu Xiaodong, CEO of Evergrande Music Co, told the conference.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn