Does MOC’s Prohibition on Item Sweepstakes Decrease the Profits for Game Companies in China?

(By You Yunting) Recently, the Ministry of Culture has issued the Notice of Ministry of Culture on Regulating Online Game Operation and Strengthening Interim and Ex Post Supervision (Referred to as “Notice”), which will be put into effect as of May, 2017. The Notice contains lots of specific policies, including the restrictive policy on providing virtual props and value-added services of an online game by sweepstakes (Referred to as “Item Sweepstakes”), which are the significant sources of profits for game companies. In this article, we’ll discuss whether this policy would affect the incomes of these game companies or not.

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How Does the US Government Determine Whether the Parallel Import of Trademarks Is Legal?

Record III of the Visit to New York

(By You Yunting) From late of March, the author visited the US at the invitation of the US government in order to get a better understanding of how the US IPR system operates. On Monday of the second week there, the author visited Wiggin and Dana LLP and Pryor Cashman LLP, two New York law firms. The law offices visited on that day were all in New York’s central business district and had spacious offices, with luxurious decorations, and the view outside was all of beautiful river scenery or of the Apple Countdown. The following is the record of that day’s visit.

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Parody on Copyrighted Works Could Be Infringement? I

the parodic portrait of ancient Chinese poet DU FU

By Albert Chen

On 7th June, 2012, the committee affiliated to Agencies for Cultural Affairs deliberated on the issues that could the derivative works and parody constitute the infringement to copyright (note: the link is in Chinese). And that marks the Japanese government facing up to the common problems KUSO in the country.

As a country with well-developed culture industry, Japan sees a large number of original cultural creations within the nation every year, including the cartoons, movies, games, etc. On the other hand, the derivatives of the existing works are also common in the country with the parody included. The trend of parody in Japan also influences the literature works of China, and thereby we see Lin Daiyu, the character in the noted A Dream in the Red Mansion, becomes a courtesan, the Monkey King begins to date with his master, and the generals in the Romance of Three Kingdoms have all been coquettes.

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