We all know China copies American Weapons, infamously copied F-35 and made Chinese FC-31 fighters. China copied pencils, watches, iPhones, shoes, denims, pants, jackets and shirts of all Western brands with zero respect for intellectual property. Heck, China copied ancient paintings and famous buildings of Italy, France, Spain, United Kingdom, the USA and Australia.
China Copied Hollywood Movies
A report now appeared in Chinese media that China copied American and British movies for last two decades. You name a famous Hollywood movie, there is a Chinese copycat of that movie, for example, John “Rambo” character is being copied to make Chinese “Wolf Warrior”.
Citing industry insiders, Chinese entertainment site ifeng.com has reported that two Chinese films that have been accused of copying foreign works will be removed from cinemas starting Monday. The report comes as Guo Jingming, an author and the director of one of the films, apologized on Thursday for plagiarizing another author’s work in one of his novels from nearly two decades ago, reports Chinese Communist Party run newspaper Global Times.
China Copied Buildings
Forest City is a new urban development in the Iskandar Malaysia Special Economic Zone in Johor, Malaysia. The project is made up of four man-made islands covering 30km2, located in the Johor strait opposite Singapore.
The islands will be a mix of residential, leisure, commercial, and industrial space, and will have an estimated population of 700,000 residents.
The project is being developed by Country Garden Pacificview Sdn Bhd as a joint venture between Country Garden Group and the Malaysian-government-backed Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd (EDSB). Country Garden (headquartered in Guangdong, China) own 60% of the project and it’s a project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Buildings, Childcare centres and medical facilities are copied from Australia and built in Forrest City Malaysia.
China Stole Coronavirus Vaccine Information
China exported the most deadliest virus in the history of mankind, but shamefully Chinese state sponsored hackers stole treatments and medical records of patients from American and Australian hospitals. China didn’t stop there, China hacked research information of Covid-19 from American universities and pharmaceutical companies.
The United States Justice Department has accused the Chinese Government of hacking firms developing coronavirus vaccines and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies across the globe.
An indictment said two Chinese hackers had researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of companies publicly known for their work in developing vaccines and treatments in recent months.
The news came as US officials escalated warnings about foreign government efforts to steal American innovation.
Counterfeit iPhones
Two Chinese men who were attending college in Oregon allegedly used thousands of counterfeit iPhones to scam a company that probably should have known better: Apple.
Under the alleged scheme, a collaborator in China would regularly ship packets of 20 to 30 fake iPhones to Yangyang Zhou and Quan Jiang, who were in the US on student visas. The duo would then send those knockoffs with repair requests to Apple. If the company determined a bogus device was eligible under warranty, it would repair it or, more often, replace it with a genuine model—usually a new phone—which the students would then send to China to be resold for a profit.
The scam was first reported by the Oregonian, and it is described in detail in a criminal complaint filed last month by federal prosecutors.
Federal agents got tipped off to the scheme in April 2017 when they opened five suspicious packages en route from Hong Kong that contained phones with possibly counterfeit markings.
Shameless Copies of Movies
According to the site, industry insiders and one employee from Oran Universal Cinemas in Beijing confirmed on Saturday night that Chinese consume fantasy film The Yin-Yang Master and comedy film Bath Buddy will be no longer to be screened starting from Monday.
Guo Jingming (on the right) an author and the director of one of the films
“We just received the notice, and we are going to temporarily change the film schedule,” said the employee.
The veracity of the report is still in question as no official statements about the films have been issued so far and Chinese ticketing platforms such as Taopiaopiao show that tickets can still be purchased for both films well into the first full week of January, although screen times are extremely limited.
In December 2020, Chinese media reported that The Yin-Yang Master had been accused of including scenes that are very similar to the 2016 Marvel superhero film Doctor Strange. The Yin-Yang Master, which debuted in Chinese mainland cinemas on December 25, has earned an estimated 435 million yuan ($66.5 million) as of Sunday.
On Thursday, Guo issued a long-awaited public apology on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo for copying writer Zhuang Yu’s original novel In and Out of the Circle in his full-length 2003 novel Never Flowers in Never Dreams and promised to compensate Zhuang with all his copyright income from the novel. Guo had originally been found guilty of plagiarism and ordered by a Beijing Intermediate Court to issue the apology back in 2006.
Bath Buddy is accused of copying South Korean webtoon God of Bath without the consent of MoonWatcher, a South Korean production company founded in 2008, according to a report from the Korea Times.
Back in early December 2020, Yi Xiaoxing, the director of Bath Buddy, addressed accusations of plagiarism, saying that he did not copy God of Bath and emphasizing how his work is different from the South Korean comic.
The hashtag about the two films’ possible removal and Guo’s apology has earned millions of views and sparked hundreds of thousands of discussion threads on Sina Weibo.
Many Chinese netizens criticized the filmmakers while showing empathy for the films’ actors who put so much energy in their roles.
“Shame on them. I just feel sorry for the actors and the investors who trusted in them and spent so much money on production and promotion,” one Chinese netizen wrote on Sina Weibo.
“This is humiliating for us! Netflix just purchased the overseas copyright for The Yin-Yang Master, but now that it is suspected of plagiarism, I wonder how they will respond to it,” another netizen asked.
Feng Xiaoqing, an intellectual property law expert with the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times on Sunday that investors usually sign contacts that include credibility clauses with directors. If a work is found to have plagiarized another work, investors can hold infringers accountable and ask for compensation.
Xu Xinming, a Beijing-based lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights, told the Global Times that he is in favor of China’s new Copyright Law, which is scheduled to come into force in June 2021.
“This law can provide a healthier and fairer environment for the film, television and literature in our country, and can serve as a warning for those who want to take advantage of loopholes,” Xu said.
According to the official website of China’s National People’s Congress, for intentional infringement, if circumstances are serious, infringers may have to pay compensation of up to five times what they earned off of the plagiarized content.
Guo was not the only big name in film and TV to issue an apology for plagiarism on Thursday.
Famed producer and screenwriter Yu Zheng also made good on a long-issued court-ordered apology in a statement on Sina Weibo apologizing for plagiarizing well-known Chinese romance novelist and screenwriter Chiung Yao’s 1993 novel Plum Blossom Mark in his TV drama Palace 3: The Lost Daughter broadcast in 2014.
Following his apology, Chinese media reported that Yu’s appearances as a judge in the third episode of the third season of Chinese variety show I Am the Actor have been removed.
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