The numbers coming out of China continue to amaze. There are 855 million digital consumers in China and they have more than twice as many internet users as the US has people. The Chinese are spending an average of 358 minutes per day online. They spend 8% of their online time streaming video content. A
I wrote the below post regarding the Qingdao Film Metropolis project in April of 2018. After we ran the post, I received threats of legal action and of violence against both me and my family. That led us to take the post down but now that Wanda has completely pulled out of the Film Metropolis
The pace of change is so rapid that it’s always hard to keep up with developments in China. What made sense last month often makes no sense this month. Here’s my attempt to make sense of what’s going on in video streaming right now. 1. More subscribers As recently as four or five years ago
Currently, the number one film in China is the smash hit Hello Mr. Billionaire (US$306M and counting). It’s a comedy about a hapless soccer player who stands to inherit 30 billion RMB, but only if he can spend 1 billion RMB in a month (albeit with a number of complicated conditions, like no gambling, donating
Since 1994, China has had a quota on the number of foreign films that can be shown in Chinese theaters on a revenue sharing basis (i.e., with the Chinese distributor remitting some percentage of the revenues to the foreign film’s producer). The quota started at 10 per year in 1994, was increased to 20 films
Over the past couple weeks, the Chinese Internet has been abuzz with chatter about how Chinese movie stars allegedly underreport income via a dual-contract system in which only one contract is disclosed to the tax authorities. The ruckus started when television personality Cui Yongyuan uploaded a redacted actor employment contract apparently for Chinese A-list actress
Online gaming in China is subject to the same overall regulatory framework that applies to software as a service (SaaS) in China. The regulatory framework comprises no less than a dozen key components that have developed over the past twenty years or so. The development has not evolved neatly. Earlier regulations have not been comprehensively
What a wild ride it’s been for the Chinese film industry! Until July 27, it had been a year of one depressing story after another. Downward-trending box office, high-flying entertainment companies imploding, deals to purchase foreign assets falling through, the biggest movie studio on the planet sold to a real estate developer, the can’t miss
I recently spoke in Beijing at a conference on legal protection of sports broadcasts, organized by the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Other speakers included Chinese judges, Chinese and American lawyers and academics, sports league and broadcaster general counsel, and American and European IP officials. What
Making a biopic – a biographical movie about real people– is complicated. And one of the biggest concerns is liability for defamation. In an ideal world, filmmakers would get everyone depicted in the movie to sign a release. But that’s often impractical: people want too much money, too much control over how they are depicted,
