THE police, not angry activists, were the first to break the law after the handover, it has emerged.
The decision to play Beethoven at high volume to drown out protesters' shouts of 'Down with Li Peng' laid the police open to civil action because no royalties had been paid to the record company.
'You may say we overlooked something,' admitted a police spokesman.
Although German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is dead, as is the recording's conductor, Leonard Bernstein, the Deutsche Gramaphon record company and the Vienna Philharmonic are very much alive.
The police will now have to pay at least $2,200 in back licence fees to Phonographic Performance (South-East Asia), which collects royalties for record firms worldwide.
'The important thing is that we will pay the money,' the spokesman said.