Sunday, October 12, 2014

Intellectual Property Rights in China. And Now for My Next Joke..



I once knew a writer in China who was very gifted, with a strong affinity for storytelling. The characters came alive on the pages, fascinating  readers so they felt they had to keep reading through the night to find out what happened. This writer has learned to write books as a trilogy, because intellectual property rights are a joke in China.
At one point the writer's publisher was ready to publish a book which had stolen the writer's characters, even keeping the same names.
The writer protested. The publisher said, "why don't you sue me. That way I'll sell more copies of this knockoff book."
Lately the books have been turned into Chinese TV shows. That's right, you guessed it, Both the writer's books and the copycat's novel are showing on Chinese television.

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