China's Public Prosecutors Complain About Leak Of Anti-Corruption TV Series They Bankrolled To Raise Awareness

from the in-the-name-of-the-people dept

As further evidence of how things are changing in China when it comes to attitudes to piracy, here's a news item from Caixin about the leak of the hottest TV series there at the moment:

A glossy Chinese television drama, inspired by the country's ongoing anti-graft campaign, has become the latest victim of rampant piracy, fueled by slack laws, weak enforcement and the absence of punitive fines.

A story about China's public prosecutors who dredge up a series of scandals as they investigate shady land deals, organized crime and [state-owned enterprise] reforms, In the Name of the People became an instant hit when it debuted on March 28 and has become one of the most-watched TV programs in Chinese history.

What makes an otherwise humdrum story about popular TV episodes turning up on video-sharing sites rather unusual is who is doing the complaining:

China's state prosecutors' office, which bankrolled the $12 million production, and other producers said they had reported the copyright infringement to police, and urged platforms including cloud services, e-commerce shops and video hosting sites to remove all unauthorized versions, in a joint statement last Thursday.

China's state prosecutors are not normally in the business of bankrolling TV productions. Presumably, they took that unusual step on this occasion because it was important to increase public support for Xi Jinping's long-running fight against corruption's "tigers" and "flies" using a medium that would reach a much wider audience than dull government speeches or press articles exhorting them to do the same.

One of the best ways to ensure the widest possible audience for that message would be to allow the TV series to appear on sites for people to download freely. So asking the companies running them to remove copies in order to "protect" the official broadcasts seems perverse. If anything, it shows that respect for copyright in China has now gone so far as to be harmful to more serious matters like tackling the country's corruption.

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Filed Under: anti-corruption, china, copyright, corruption, piracy

Canada's Strict New Anti-Corruption Rules Might Lead To Yet More Corporate Sovereignty Lawsuits Against It

from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept

Recently, we wrote about the extraordinary free trade agreement between Canada and China that places itself above the Canadian constitution. Here's another development where Canada can serve as a warning to the rest of the world about the dangers of giving too much power to corporations in free trade agreements, as reported by the The Globe and Mail:

Canada risks being hit with a World Trade Organization challenge and NAFTA investor lawsuits over its threat to bar some companies from selling to the government for up to 10 years, warns a report commissioned by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and delivered to federal officials.

And a number of foreign multinationals are already exploring possible trade action, according to an industry source, who declined to be named.

The problem is that Canada has introduced new anti-corruption rules:

Under the newly revised federal regime, companies seeking to bid on federal contracts must certify that neither they nor their affiliates have been charged with a long list of criminal offences anywhere in the world, including bribery and fraud, dating back 10 years.

Apparently, the inclusion of affiliates is much stricter than anti-corruption laws elsewhere, and that might open up Canada to claims that it is unreasonable for Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies to be held responsible for the actions of other affiliates over which they have no control. No lawsuits have yet been filed, so it's too early to say how serious this threat is. But it certainly emphasizes how signing up to corporate sovereignty chapters in free trade agreements -- in this case, the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement -- increases the risk that companies will use them in unexpected ways to attack governments when they introduce new policies, however praiseworthy those may be.

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Filed Under: anti-corruption, canada, china, corporate sovereignty, free trade, isds, trade agreements