Digital Media in Asia Blog

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.  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, and posted it on the internet. Hu’s parody has become an overnight sensation in China, and something of a cause c�l�bre.

From The Times:

[Hu’s] satire, unprecedented in China’s carefully monitored media, has
attracted millions of viewers, almost certainly many more than paid to
see The Promise. The film has proved to be something of a box-office flop, although distributors say it has earned �15 million.

Chinese collapse in gales of laughter as they watch Mr Hu’s spoof. The Steamed Bun Murder
not only parodies the most expensive film made in China, but also pokes
fun at state television. He uses a poker-faced presenter and stuffy
communist terminology in his tongue-in-cheek report of the
investigation into the humble bun murder.

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.

There is a developing trend of homemade spoofs gaining phenomenal popularity over the internet in China (e.g., the Back Dorm Boys, 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.

This Thursday, March 2, we’re pleased to present a live and webcast event, co-hosted with the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School.  Professor Peter Yu will present “Elegant Offenses, Digital Opium and the Sinicyberspace.”  Lunchtime talks begin promptly at 12:30 p.m.  This talk is open to the public, and is located at Harvard Law School, Pound Hall 106. You are invited to bring your lunch beginning at 12 noon to meet the guest speaker and others in EALS and the Digital Media in Asia Project. We’ll supply fruit, cookies, and beverages.

We will post a link to the webcast on this blog shortly before the event.

From Professor Yu:

About Peter Yu:

Peter K. Yu (余家明) is Associate Professor of Law and the founding director of the nationally-ranked Intellectual Property & Communications Law Program at Michigan State University College of Law.  He holds appointments in the Asian Studies Center and the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University. He is also a research fellow of the Center for Studies of Intellectual Property Rights at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, China and a member of the affiliated faculty of the Working Group on Property, Citizenship, and Social Entrepreneurism at Syracuse University College of Law.  Born and raised in Hong Kong, Professor Yu is a leading expert in international intellectual property and communications law.  He is the editor or coeditor of three books and currently is working on a book titled Paranoid Pirates and Schizophrenic Swashbucklers: Protecting Intellectual Property in Post-WTO China.  Professor Yu has spoken at events organized by the ITU, UNCTAD, WIPO and the U.S. government and at leading research institutions from around the world.  He is a frequent commentator in the national and international media, and his publications are available on his website at www.peteryu.com.