介绍:
Heyang: Is piracy going to raise its ugly head again in China? As China’s TV watchdog state administration of press, publication, radio, film, and television, which I’ll just say, SAPPRFT, has released tougher regulations, saying that all foreign TV shows must be viewed scrupulously before being made available online. So what is this new tougher regulation?
John: A lot of it is just part of SAPPRFT’s increasing influence and it’s been playing for a long time on what is actually broadcast or what types of content are available online. For a long long time, the Internet is been seen as a bastion of perhaps more cutting-edge material.
Mark: I was quite interested by your use of the phrase “cutting-edge.” What are we talking about? Is it things like particular types of content, for example, maybe scenes of drugs-taking, or some sexual scenes, and violence and that kind of thing?
John: I think that’s the concern. Because right now, China does not have a rating system for any cultural or entertainment product. Nothing for movies, nothing for TV or music or anything.
Heyang: Yeah, for these imported shows, there are just of a wider genre. But in the Chinese scene, it seems to be a lot more boring, I would say. There’s less choices. So do you think that there is a supposedly at least 6 month delay for these imported shows to be shown in China mean that this would give more room for domestic-made shows? This seems to be what our very loyal and lovely listener Draco thinks.
Mark: Thank you Draco. The thing is that Chinese viewers are extremely resourceful and perhaps impatient to watch the next season or what it might be. And I don’t think they are going to wait 6 months patiently before they can watch them. I think they might seek them out and try finding them elsewhere or trying get round it. So it could make the piracy situation worse possibly.
John: Yes, it could. That’s what manager of the copyright department of Aiqiyi is saying, and I think this is the argument that we gonna hear. Maybe not made publicly, this is probably the argument that streaming websites are making to the regulatory authority as well, because it is going to raise quite a few issues about IP protection. On the surface, people are saying this is about SARFT maintaining control, and things like that. Administration of Culture and making sure nothing unclean is allowed to be broadcast so on and so on. But the secondary fact perhaps the primary purpose of these types of regulation is to ensure a space for Chinese entertainment products. Because shows like Big Bang Theory, shows like the Good Wife, and things like that, they have become so amazingly popular that people, especially younger people, will choose to watch those over things like Japanese war dramas.
But looking towards the piracy comment here, I think that there is quite a bit of validity to that. However it’s a landscape that right now in terms of privacy and in terms of authorized or licensed content. It is very different for what it was five or six years ago when streaming online was not as popular. And the only way you could get it was buy pirating. But if you look at it along the traditional places where people got pirated content, or they are shut down, or they’ve got legitimate. The avenues for piracies are going to be a bit more challenging, so you have to be a bit more tenacious s to actually find the pirated content. And also I think the technology behind video streaming and things like mobile devices and applications and things have become so mainstream already that people are just going to continue using those to access entertainment. So I think piracy is a concern, but it is not going to be as big of a problem as it was five or six years ago.
Heyang: I think that is a good point and I also agree with what Mark said a bit earlier about when you so used and hooked to watching these shows, you want this form of entertainment, you don’t want to give it up, despite the fact that it might not be as that convenient for you to get it in the future because it really reminds me of back in my days in middle school, there was this really popular TV drama called Meteor Garden and all the girls are crazy about it. And back then, there wasn’t really much Internet either. So we all went to get pirated DVDs. The whole class got it, just because we couldn’t get it from legitimate avenues. So, here, I think you can find the information you want if you really want it that much.
John: I think that if it is popular enough, you will be able to find it, either online or offline. But this reminds me of Game of Thrones, which is a fact it has clocked records in terms of the number of times has been pirated. I think it has been downloaded legitimately more than any other TV series in the history of online TV piracy. One of the reasons is because HBO does not make it available to enough people and enough ways for them to consuming.
Heyang: But what quite interesting is also from some of these streaming websites, this might have a limited impact on their service and business because watching these imported shows are still those people who were probably considered as the niche market. When you check the clicks, it’s one out of ten of those who actually watch these imported shows.
Mark: Which amazes me, because you know I think perhaps for most people I know, their only source of TV viewing would be watching stuff online.
Heyang: But you are talking about a huge consumer base. So I don’t think percentage really matter as much here. You have to look at the numbers, right?
John: But also we need to wait for this rule coming to full-effected.
Mark: Well time will tell. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen before the currency of Homeland is finished.
