Kong which led to public concern about their safety. There has been research where they recreated an establishment with 3 boxes and a corridor, in a remote location in China, which was designed with the intention of testing a real-time fire in a karaoke establishment. There has also been additional research about karaoke boxes as to ensure the safety of the customers in evacuation research about widening the length of hallways. The term karaoke box is primarily used in Japan, Hong Kong and Macau. Karaoke box establishments are commonly known as KTV (an abbreviation of karaoke television) in Taiwan, China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, the United States and Canada, videoke in the Philippines, noraebang (노래방) in South Korea (literally meaning singing room), hwamyŏn panju ŭmaksil (화면반주음악실) in North Korea, karaoke room in Vietnam, and karaoke club in Sri Lanka. It is also common to simply abbreviate it as K in Hong Kong Cantonese, often when used as a verb, for example 去K歌 (to go K songs) or 去唱K (to go sing K). Legal issues KTV can also refer to a karaoke music video, a music video with karaoke lyrics and MMO audio track. Some karaoke music videos were sold to KTV establishments under exclusivity contracts, making some people use them to copy karaoke music videos illegally and share them on the Internet. These are often found on the Internet in MPEG (VCD) or VOB (DVD) format with (KTV) appended to the filename. References External links At the Mic: Karaoke Television, by Mia Dick, Compass Magazine, April–May 1998, retrieved 5 November 2006. Karaoke Players Info: More about the usage of karaoke around the world. Karaoke Japanese popular culture Cambodian culture Chinese culture Cantonese culture Culture of Hong Kong Culture of Macau Singaporean culture Malaysian culture Indonesian culture Philippine popular culture South Korean popular culture Sri Lankan culture Taiwanese culture Thai culture Vietnamese culture