China Media & Entertainment Law Report : China Media Lawyer & Attorney : Reed Smith Law Firm : Entertainment, Sports & Consumer Rights Law

The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) recently released a notice critical of time travel and other supernatural content on television.The notice as written does not actually ban shows featuring this kind of content outright – despite the alarmist headlines of numerous media reports – but this official discouragement indicates that any current or planned programming with such content will face significant challenges in production and obtaining approval from state regulators.

SARFT’s decision to speak out against programs that take liberties in their representation of historical situations and events indicates the central government’s active management of the entertainment sector and the mechanisms by which the government will use its powers to set the cultural agenda.  The notice will have a cooling effect on the production of period pieces with fantastical elements, which apparently aggravated regulators because of their “bizarre [and] superstitious” plots.  SARFT’s decision to focus on time travel may appear arbitrary, but this action demonstrates that the government is not averse to pulling the plug even on popular media that it believes to have an adverse social effect. 

Television and film producers will be forced to consider whether their programming may fall into regulatory disfavor, and the result will likely be more conservative content more consciously aligned with the government’s social messaging priorities.  SARFT also took this opportunity to encourage programmers to develop more content focusing on how well all ethnic groups in China have done under the leadership of the Communist Party as part of the celebration of the Party's 90th anniversary. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

If legal protections for intellectual property move too slowly in China, creators still have some recourse: public shaming. Dozens of Chinese authors, including China’s most widely read blogger Han Han, recently confronted search giant Baidu and its CEO Robin Li for facilitating online piracy of books on a massive scale through its Baidu Wenku (Library) service. Although the authors’ campaign led Baidu to remove an estimated 2.8 million copyrighted files from its service, many issues remain unresolved, including compensation for past piracy and mechanisms to prevent future infringement. The controversy presents an opportunity to explore the powers and limits of public pressure in framing a case and compelling compliance outside of the court system.

At the end of March, around fifty Chinese authors signed a letter to Baidu requesting compensation for illegal downloads of their copyrighted materials and asking that Baidu install a system to review uploaded documents to determine whether or not they infringe on an author’s copyright. When initial negotiations broke down, the backlash from Chinese authors was considerable, with numerous angry and, naturally, well-written essays criticizing Baidu and Robin Li appearing on the internet. 

While the creators’ complaints received coverage in both the English and Chinese language media, perhaps the most important commentary came from Han Han, who used his online megaphone to frame the issue as not only Baidu’s exploitation of China’s lax IP protections but also Robin Li’s personal moral failing in two acerbic blog posts. Within days, Baidu had issued an apology to writers, promised to remove millions of files, and arranged to continue discussions with industry representatives regarding compensation and Baidu’s planned infringement prevention system.

The use of public pressure to push an ideal of intellectual property protection appears to be a powerful social development in favor of creators with significant commercial implications, but the effects on China’s legal development may be mixed. We will report developments on this as they arise.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In the interest of social harmony, Beijing’s government has recently promulgated new restrictions on the content of outdoor advertisements. The restrictions, issued in a Beijing Municipal Government Bulletin on the Work of Rectifying Outdoor Advertising, prohibit advertisers from using language that promotes “an unhealthy political culture” in their descriptions of properties, products and services. 

The categories of content discouraged include luxurious, hedonistic, and elitist language including words like "supreme," "royal," and "high class," coarse language, and xenophilic material. According to the Bulletin, advertisers running afoul of the new restrictions can be hit with a fine of up to RMB 30,000 and be compelled to remove the offending advertisement. 

Advertisers have until April 15th to rectify their outdoor ads, but it is as yet unclear how stringently the Bulletin’s provisions will be enforced. The definition of objectionable content as provided in the Bulletin is vague and leaves each marginal and potentially offending advertisement subject to interpretation by regulators. The subjectivity inherent to these decisions empowers regulators and will challenge companies as they develop their ad campaigns.

If the regulations are rigorously enforced, the advertising landscape for luxury items will drastically change as companies learn to overcompensate with increasingly innocuous ads; however, the Beijing municipal government has not indicated a willingness to convey the kind of antagonistic message that stringent enforcement of these advertising rules would send to high-end businesses, especially foreign businesses. More likely the Bulletin will serve as a reminder of the Beijing government’s agenda-setting power and its policy priorities, namely social harmony and income equality, and give luxury advertisers an incentive to keep their advertisements relatively conservative. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The dispute between software companies Qihoo 360 and Tencent late last year revealed complex relationships among Chinese regulators, netizens, media outlets, and the companies themselves. 

The dispute, which escalated through September and October before it was quashed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), had its roots in the competition to provide China’s over 450 million internet users with antivirus software. Tencent, which operates the wildly popular Chinese instant messaging service QQ, alarmed Qihoo 360 by auto-installing its QQ Doctor software along with the instant messenger. Qihoo 360, the leading provider of antivirus software in China, struck back by accusing QQ of spying on its users and labeling QQ malware. In an effort to force users to take sides, Tencent then halted QQ services on any computer with Qihoo’s antivirus software installed, gambling that users would choose to keep using their familiar instant messaging software as opposed to a much less well-known antiviral product. 

Unfortunately for Tencent, their move to hold QQ hostage was widely panned and derided by netizens as rumors swirled that Qihoo 360 was correct about QQ’s proclivity to track users’ behavior. As the embarrassing war of words dragged on, providing endless fuel for netizen satirists and creating space for international companies to target newly dissatisfied Chinese consumers, the Chinese government began to get involved. Articles in China Daily and other state-run media harshly criticized both companies and called for a resolution to the conflict. Next, MIIT began its own investigation into Tencent and Qihoo’s business practices and compliance with national laws and regulations. It determined that the two companies were both at fault for engaging in non-competitive practices and ordered the companies to cease their conflict, restore mutual compatibility, and apologize to the public.

MIIT’s involvement ended the dispute and seems to have largely restored the status quo, but the conflict spurred the development of a new regulation. On January 14, MIIT released for public comment the Provisional Measures on the Supervision and Management of Order in the Internet Information Services Market. The draft Measures would bar providers of online services from interfering with other providers’ provision of legitimate and legal products or services and from discrediting competitors. The draft also emphasizes the importance of protecting users’ information, prohibits software that maliciously blocks or intercepts information from internet services, and directs companies to desist from bundling software products.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Chinese football has long been plagued by allegations of official impropriety and corruption. Last year saw numerous top football officials in China, including former Chinese Football Association heads Xie Yalong and Nan Yong, arrested under suspicion of taking bribes and fixing matches. Xie Yalong, who served as Chief of the Chinese Football Association between 2005 and 2009, was taken into custody for questioning in September 2010 with regard to his alleged corruption. Xie was appointed to repair the public image of Chinese football and clean up illicit practices in the national league, but he failed to fulfill this goal. His successor Nan Yong was given the same task, but after just one year he too was arrested on bribe-taking and match-fixing charges. Sentencing for Nan Yong, who may face the death penalty for his crimes, and Xie Yalong is expected soon.

In spite of the game’s tarnished image, sports betting in China remains extremely popular, with 90% of all wagers on competitions involving football matches. The China Sports Lottery is the only legal form of sports betting in the country. The lottery is quite popular and rakes in huge annual profits, which are to be set aside for the development of public sporting facilities.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link