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Buzzword muddies artistic copyright issue
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ONLINE novelist Xu Lei became one of the most famous, wealthiest practitioners of the genre after his eight-volume adventure novel “The Lost Tomb” attracted millions of cyber fans.
He registered his creation with the State Intellectual Property Office, but that hasn’t guaranteed him undisputed ownership of his work as it spreads across multimedia. He has had to file lawsuits when his work was adapted to other formats without his permission.
In China, this is a common problem among creative artists as inventive ideas are adapted to movies, mobile games, Internet novels, musical works and dramas.
China’s system of protecting such intellectual rights is still in its infancy. In the absence of ironclad guarantees of ownership, many content producers have seized on the notion that popularity, often measured by online clicks, stakes out their proprietary territory.
At the 11th China International Cartoon & Game Expo that ended in Shanghai on Monday, the big buzzword was intellectual property. Even if it’s not always used in a conventional sense, it has become a keyword that many artists are seizing upon as the holy grail of success.
“The idea is hot, but intellectual property is still largely undervalued everywhere,” said Xu at the expo, who writes under the pen name Nan Pai San Shu, or “southern-style third uncle.”
“I keep telling people across industries that they need to respect the true value of intellectual property.”
The State Intellectual Property Office says the situation is improving. It recently announced an upgrading in China’s Intellectual Property Development Index to 63.7 points from 62.7 points in 2013. The index is based on evaluation of creation, utilization, protection and the environment for intellectual property development. In short, China is slowly moving up the ladder.
“Every big platform and company is fighting over intellectual property as if it were the secret weapon that assures success,” said Fang Fang, director of Tencent’s drama center. “But I’m not so positive about this whole phenomenon. The trend may last for a while and the battle may get fiercer, but it will start to fizzle within two years.”
Of course, buzzwords are nothing new in the cyber age, a realm that lurches from one craze to the next. Some might say the current intellectual property craze is nothing but putting old wine in a new bottle.
Traditionally, adaptation meant turning novels into films or stage plays. Nowadays, it can refer to almost anything that moves across platforms: the line in a popular song, a cartoon character, a game format.
The trend is being fueled by the current focus on multimedia. Content is being developed that can be conveyed though texts messages, plays, dramas, films, games, comic books and animation.
Within 10 days in May alone, 136 movies were registered as “works in progress.” That compares with about 600 movies filmed during the whole of 2014. The purpose is to grab rights to titles as soon as possible, no matter how obscure the project.
For example, one movie project was registered under the title “He He,” which is similar to the “lol” shorthand widely on the Internet to express laughter, a pretentious smile or even, in some instances, a moment of awkwardness. The synopsis of the registered movie says the story is about a young filmmaker realizing his dreams. How that links to “He He” is anybody’s guess.
Another film project was bizarrely registered under the title “Xinhua Dictionary,” and another under the title “Tetris,” the classic Russian game.
Online storytelling, which can be easily measured by clicks, is among the most sought-after intellectual property. Xu’s saga is among the most-clicked Internet novels of all times. When the last volume of the series came out in print version, it sold more than one million copies within a week.
This genre has seen a rapid rise. Only two years ago, nobody was very interested in Internet sagas. Nowadays they can easily fetch more than US$1.5 million, and aspiring writers of all ilks are stampeding into the genre.
Fantasy and adventures stories that can be adapted into online games generate the biggest income.
“Most people in the industry don’t show proper respect for its original content,” Xu complained.
A 12-episode drama series based on the first volume of Xu’s novel was recently launched on the video streaming site iQiyi, receiving 100 million clicks in 22 hours and crashing the site server. A movie adaptation is scheduled for release next year. A game version was almost launched.
Xu said he has tried his best but had little say in these adaptations. The streamed version drew mostly negative reviews, with critics panning the addition of characters and scenes not in the original novel and poor special effects.
Keeping track and safeguarding content across so many platforms is simply beyond the scope of one person, Xu said.
“I have gotten so tired of it all,” Xu continued. “I realized that I simply can’t carry on all by myself, so I am seeking partners who can appreciate its value and can help me.”
Content authors are not the only frustrated ones.
Luo Li, vice president of China Reading Ltd which owns most of the most popular Internet novel sites, said he has yet to see a successful instance of intellectual property development.
“In an ideal scenario,” he said, “you want one very professional production committee that sets the schedule and plans the whole chain of products, and then launches them all at once or in a very clever sequence to create the biggest commercial impact.”
His company has just launched an animation based on a top-click fantasy Internet novel. “The Chinese market is so new and so different that you just can’t go and copy the experience of other countries,” Luo said. “We are all still exploring the best way for intellectual property development here.”
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