By Larry Kao

Chinese piracy crackdown, downloading in India up; development of Malaysian pay TV; MTV India: The M stands for mature viewing; the Chinese karaoke cashbox. All this and a whole lot more in the August 3rd, 2006 edition of News From Abroad.

Chinese piracy crackdown...

Chinese officials are beginning to crack down on illegal piracy in Tianjin municipality adjacent to Beijing. The campaign started last week and is a Chinese equivalent of a “wanted” poster of the American frontier. The two perpetrators sought are Sun Xuemei and Zhang Li, and the Ministry of Public Security is offering 10,000 RMB as a reward for their capture. The two are accused of transporting over 180,000 units from Guangdong province to Tianjin. The estimated total haul for their illegal business is 1.4 Million RMB. The tactic of putting ads in newspapers is another way that China is trying to show the United States and Europe that China is committed to the fight against piracy.

...Indian Downloading Up

While China is moving to curb illegal sales of pirated DVDs, movie downloading in Asia is increasing. Recent survey findings showed that 68% of those questioned in Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai illegally downloaded at least two English language films per month. While the rise was expected, the pace of the increase still surprised many involved with international film rights. And piracy was not limited to only English releases; 80% of respondents also admitted to downloading home-grown Indian releases.

Changes in Chinese cartoon regulation

Domestic Chinese animation is on the fast track for approval by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT). The new regulations allow for Chinese animators to submit applications for state approval once a month and at the provincial authority level. Previous regulations stated that animators could only submit applications twice a year, and only to Beijing through the SARFT. The move comes as China contemplates its position in the global animation market, and its own domestic market. With several hundreds of millions of teenagers and children, China wants to spur nascent development in its animation industry and hopes to compete domestically against Japanese and Korean cartoons that are 90% of the Chinese animation market.

Malaysia pay TV

Malaysia's most prominent pay TV operator, Astro All Asia Networks, is planning to spend $82 million in creating local unique content per year. The move is an attempt to strengthen distribution platforms and content development. It is also a move from more of a distributor of channels from other content providers such as Disney, and Viacom.

Voices of India

In the direct aftermath of the attacks on Mumbai, over 30 Indian television channels have signed on to a simulcast of a two-minute film, “The Voices of India.” The broadcast is scheduled for Tuesday, July 25, and is a show of Indian solidarity with the victims of the attacks. The film will include views of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and also features leading Bollywood stars such as Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Fardeen Khan, Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar, film directors Yash Chopra and Karan Johar, and cricket star Sachin Tendulkar.

Bollywood Production continues after attacks

After the attacks on Mumbai, India's film industry rapidly moves back into production mode. While the rest of Mumbai slowly gets back to everyday life, film production has quickly rebounded. Many film executives believe that, barring other incidents, the drop in production should only be temporary. And current release plans have not been derailed, with the release of Golmaal still set to be released over the weekend.

No Longer Lost in Translation…

Japan has slowed the use of A-list actors to advertise various products ranging from sports drinks to denim, from ramen to soap. In the 1980s and 1990s, American screen stars were shipped over and paid exorbitant amounts of money for a several day stint shooting television advertisements, most notably chronicled in Sofia Coppola's film Lost In Translation. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Harrison Ford are among the stars that have done several commercials for a variety of Japanese products throughout the past two decades. But more recently, Japan has been using more home-grown talents and other Asian actors as Asian stars have gained more prominence in Japan. Part of this is due to the Japanese economic recession starting in the mid 1990s, as Japanese advertisers had to shift its target demographic. This shift from Hollywood actors to Asian actors is also due to the resurgence of Asian popular culture in Japan as Korean and Taiwanese films have enjoyed success in recent years.

South Korea Beats Japan ... in film release dates.

The Japanese horror film Ghost Train opened in South Korea on July 27 on 120 screens several months before it is set to open in Japanese theaters. The film follows the Japanese horror genre formula, which is extremely popular in South Korea, and is about Nana, an 18-year-old girl played by Erika Sawajiri, and her misadventures on a haunted commuter train. The film is slated to open in Japan on September 30.

MTV India: The M stands for mature viewing

MTV India recently was required to have a public service announcement scroll down during its broadcast of a music video from an Indian film, stating that the film had received Adult certification by India's film bureaucracy. Aashiq Banaya Aapne (You Made Me a Lover), the film the promotional video was aired from, received an Adult rating, as did its promo video that aired on MTV India. A spokesperson for MTV India mentioned that generally films with Adult ratings have promotional videos, but not in this case. The video was later taken out of rotation from the channel.

The Chinese karaoke cashbox

The Karaoke clubs and bars of China might soon be required to pay a usage fee to factor in the copyrighted songs that are sung during Karaoke sessions. The usage fees would be in the form of 1% of total revenue from karaoke. The move is an attempt to show copyright holders that China is serious about cracking down on blatant violations of international intellectual property rights. While initial usage fees would be in the form of 1% revenue, future agreements could be in the form of sophisticated computers that tally usage of popular songs and formulate the fees based on the usage of songs instead of by revenue. It is expected to cost an additional .2 RMB per song use. The competition among KTV bars and rooms is so high that the KTV companies are expected to absorb the cost as long as the fees are cheap enough; the consumer is not expected to pay more in increased prices. But this is under the assumption that the administration will be able to collect. Currently, the National Copyright Administration of China still lacks the infrastructure to make enforcement of fees regular and consistent.

Published: Thursday, August 3, 2006