Internet users face higher charges under a composers' plan to recoup fees for music copied on the information highway.
Fearing their works will be widely copied with new technology, they are proposing licensing Internet service providers for using their copyright material.
The Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong, which seeks to gather fees for the playing of members' songs, has raised the plan.
It expects a lot of copyright works to be downloaded from the Internet in the future and easily copied using computers to reproduce a high quality sound.
Licensing the service providers would provide fees which could be redistributed to the copyright owners, said spokesman Angelina Law Yuen-fai.
The Government is rewriting copyright ordinances, which are based on British laws, for the change of sovereignty, but believes no changes need to be made for the Internet.
