{"id":25,"date":"2006-02-28T10:24:21","date_gmt":"2006-02-28T14:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/2006\/02\/28\/homemade-videos-in-china-highlight-th"},"modified":"2006-05-15T00:34:04","modified_gmt":"2006-05-15T04:34:04","slug":"homemade-videos-in-china-highlight-the-internet-as-an-alternative-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/2006\/02\/28\/homemade-videos-in-china-highlight-the-internet-as-an-alternative-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Homemade videos in China highlight the internet as an alternative to state-run TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Celebrated Chinese film director Chen Kaige (<\/span>Farewell My Concubine<\/span>) has threatened to sue Hu Ge<\/a>, a 31 year-old Shanghai audio engineer, with copyright infringement–because of a homemade spoof about steamed buns.\u00a0 Hu was so disappointed with Chen’s latest film, <\/span>The Promise<\/span>, that he put together <\/span>The Steamed Bun Murder, <\/i>a 20-minute parody of the film, and posted it on the internet. Hu’s parody has become an overnight sensation in China, and something of a cause c\ufffdl\ufffdbre.<\/p>\n

From The Times<\/a>:
<\/span><\/p>\n

[Hu’s] satire, unprecedented in China\u2019s carefully monitored media, has
\nattracted millions of viewers, almost certainly many more than paid to
\nsee The Promise.<\/i> The film has proved to be something of a box-office flop, although distributors say it has earned \ufffd15 million.\n<\/p>\n

Chinese collapse in gales of laughter as they watch Mr Hu\u2019s spoof. The Steamed Bun Murder<\/i>
\nnot only parodies the most expensive film made in China, but also pokes
\nfun at state television. He uses a poker-faced presenter and stuffy
\ncommunist terminology in his tongue-in-cheek report of the
\ninvestigation into the humble bun murder. <\/p>\n

If Chen pursues a legal case it is unclear if Chinese courts would allow a parody fair-use defense. Such parodies are rarely produced or broadcast by the strictly controlled state-run traditional media, so these might be untested legal waters.<\/p>\n

There is a developing trend of homemade spoofs gaining phenomenal popularity over the internet in China (e.g., the Back Dorm Boys<\/a>, whose goofy dormroom webcam video of themselves performing Backstreet Boys tracks was such a sensation it landed them an advertising deal with Motorola). Clearly, Chinese consumers see the internet as a source of alternative content that’s in tune with the modern Chinese urban experience in a way that the conservative state-run media is not. Hu’s spoof is a salient example, taking direct shots at a state-run media perceived as stuffy.<\/span><\/span><\/span>
<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrated Chinese film director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) has threatened to sue Hu Ge, a 31 year-old Shanghai audio engineer, with copyright infringement–because of a homemade spoof about steamed buns.\u00a0 Hu was so disappointed with Chen’s latest film, The Promise, that he put together The Steamed Bun Murder, a 20-minute parody of the film, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,372,374,371],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-film","category-intellectual-property-law","category-internet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dmablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}