Image from Qidian
Date: 5 June 2017 (9:00 – 18:00)
Location: University of Edinburgh Business School, room LT1A
To book: Email project director Dr Xiaobai Shen (xiaobai.shen@ed.ac.uk )
This workshop presents findings from CREATe supported research into the role of digitization and copyright protection in the development of creative industries in contemporary China. In the USA and Europe, incumbent players in the creative industries have been strongly entrenched and struggled to hold on to old business models, while China has enjoyed a period of “letting a hundred flowers bloom”. In a liberal copyright protection environment, digital technology and internet infrastructure have enabled the emergence of many new services, greatly stimulating production and consumption of cultural content. The recent tightening of copyright protection has stimulated further change, promoting a restructuring of the online creative industries, in which internet giants, Baidu, Alibaba and TenCent have become the dominant players. On the one hand, to comply with the copyright protection, they are competing to secure licensed contents – particularly imported from overseas. On the other, they are engaging with the creation of cultural contents and adjusting services to attract and retain users.
Will the current copyright regime promote or inhibit innovation in online creative culture industries in China? Will China converge or differentiate with the practices in the West?
The Programme
Research findings from studies in China will be presented, along with feedback from the Chinese policy and practitioner workshop held in Beijing on 6th April 2017. The event will feature keynote contributions from Chinese online creative culture industries. It will be followed by an open discussion and a dialogue between participants from China and their counterparts in the UK.
Participation is by invitation only. Participants’ views will only be reported with their explicit agreement. Those interested to take part should contact the project director, Dr Xiaobai Shen, xiaobai.shen@ed.ac.uk.
The event is funded by the AHRC, Newton Fund and CREATe. It is sponsored by the University of Edinburgh and the Peking University Law School.