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RFA: SARFT Issued Regulation Preventing Derivative Work on Classical Literature, Movies, and Television Works

According to an article Radio Free Asia published, people are concerned that a new regulation that the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) announced on March 22 will limit derivative work and suppress freedom of creativity. SARFT announced that it will prevent any online program from producing or publishing programs that distort, spoof, or demonize classic works of literature. It also forbids editing, dubbing, or adding subtitles to any classic works of literature, radio, or television programs, and any original Internet programs. The announcement claimed that since the end of January this year, the Ministry of Culture has cleaned up 3,898 movies that contain spoofs of contents of classic revolutionary songs and 165 of those that contain spoofs of music. An artist from Beijing was quoted as saying that the authorities have issued a number regulations that appear to stabilize the social order, but the real intent is to eliminate any voice of opposition from the public. Another Taiwan movie director was quoted in the article as saying that he supports freedom of creativity, but he agrees that the derivative works violate the copyright issue. RFA reached out to SARFT for further clarification, but the person who answered the phone said he was not responsible for giving an explanation.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 23, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/creation-03232018083138.html