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The Unauthorized State-Owned Chinese Disneyland
rmnoon writes "Apparently Japanese TV and bloggers have just discovered Disney's theme park in China, where young children can be part of the Magic Kingdom and interact with their favorite characters (like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the Seven Dwarfs). The park's slogan is 'Because Disneyland is Too Far,' and there's even an Epcot-like dome. The only problem? Disney didn't build it, and they didn't authorize it. What's more? It's state-owned!"
..that the war between China and the United States is more of a legislative and economic one fought with dollars and cents. China and the Taliban don't need to take us by force, they simply need to take over our economy. China by manufacturing and selling unauthorized patented and copywritten equipment and now theme parks. We do all of the research and development, and they sell it at cost with no reimbursement, thus destroying our system of innovation, and allowing them to turn the world back into the stone age. The Taliban will take us by causing us to put all of our tax payers dollars into ammo.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Considering Disney has made a big deal about people getting tattoos of Disney characters, I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually, I didn't really believe it until I saw a couple other sources.
Take that Eisner!
Yeah, funny, but the copyright maximalists have just gotten another arrow in their quiver.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I don't think you understand. China is a country. A large one. Disney is a company, one whose wishes are only enforced because some countries (eg. U.S., European countries) have agreed to use their police and border guards to enforce Disney's wishes. Clearly China doesn't agree to use its police/border guards in that way, and unless a small company has a remote chance of taking on a large country (be it economically or militarily), Disney really doesn't have much say in the matter. (granted, futuristic SciFi novels about corporations having more power than countries are interesting to read, but we're not there yet)
As long as they repeat GM's unprofitability, the world has nothing to fear.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
This is an interesting expression of the saturation of global culture, and how, despite the perceived barriers between easter and western societies, these gaps are slowly dissolving. What i find most interesting is that, as far as i can tell, the park is so popular - legal issues aside, this does imply within the Chinese population some tension between the west and the east has been eased. Although this is perhaps not the best place to find shared cultural values, it is a start, and i think it would do well for Disney not to castigate the government of China, but rather try to reach some sort of compromise or understanding. Unfortunately, being that they are a corporation, it is unlikely that they will see anything but a lawsuit. One can hope, but that hope is likely misplaced.
For how long should disney really have monopoly on Winnie the Pooh for example.
I think it is time that the copyrights from 1920 or so expire for the enjoyment of all.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I bet the government built the fake Disney as a way to avoid further international embarrasment related to overcrowding at the real China Disney in Hong Kong.
The crowds swelled beyond belief during the Chinese New Year in 2006. Parents were so distraught that they started throwing their kids over the entry gates. There were some hilarious videos of this floating around out there. Can anyone find a link?
OBL has openly written that they are out to destroy our economy. He wants us in the same boat that Russia was. So far, W. is helping him out.
As to China, they are trying to position themselves to own the world economy and then control countries in manners that they see fit(a MUCH larger USA with a nastier attitude). It is not the stealing of ideas that is doing this. It is the fact that they have tied their money to our money at a fixed rate. If it was allowed to float, then it would have increased in a big way by now. Others have dredged up the typical neo-con argument that this helps the economy. And for a short-term, they are correct. But it destroys the manufacturing (read tax) base. Another argument is that China holds a huge amount of our cash. And they will laugh if it falls, so long as they are in control. In the past, America had large natural resources to fall in during those times. Not anymore. What this means is that when China wants to pull the rug on us, they will be in control. And that is going to happen in about another 15 years (or less).
W.'s going to argue about the copyright and patents is almost akin to chargin Charlie Manson with litter AND making a big deal of it. It totally ignores the real problems.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...and unless a small company has a remote chance of taking on a large country (be it economically or militarily), Disney really doesn't have much say in the matter.And this would be a good reason why I laugh at the so called International Court systems. If an American company manages to make a profit through ANY type of help by the government everyone in the world screams. China blatantly rips off a corporation and "nothing can be done." WTF? If the WTO and other organizations are that weak, why the HELL to we keep kowtowing to every stupid little demand they toss our way.
This would be a good time for America to slap huge tariffs on all Chinese products until this type of blatant crap is stopped. If Wallyworld has to pay $500 for that cheaply made American flag, I'm sure they'll find someone else to make them than the Chinese.
Let's just say "Screw China." They've never been our friends and they are working on destroying us economically and eventually politically. That's why they try to buy our politicians. How come everyone gets upset when the US tries to influence an election somewhere else (That's IMPERIALISM!) But when they try to buy the Clinton White House, no one says crap about it. How come THAT isn't Imperialism? Oh, cause they're a Communist country why they couldn't POSSIBLY have any Imperialist plans.
Sigh... Sorry... Button pushed...
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
And maybe it'll last beyond the 100Kkm point where American cars fall into pieces...
Bullpuckey! I had a Bronco with 230k miles with its original everything except tires and brakes, and oil(which it did use, but not burn) of course. The A/C still worked, and the only real problem it had was that the clutch was worn out and slipping. Many of the newer cars are warrantied for 100k miles before the first tune up. The only crappy "American" car I know of is the Chrysler product. And who owns them? In fact "American" cars are by name only. Kinda like the "Chicago" Cubs. How many of those guys are from Chicago?
What?
What this means is that when China wants to pull the rug on us, they will be in control. And that is going to happen in about another 15 years (or less).
I doubt it. If there is one good thing that king jr has done in his utterly fucked up administration, is convice the world at large that we are armed and irrational. While china COULD try to screw over the reigning military superpower, is it really wise to poke a stick at the mad dog with all the nukes and carriers? 15 years from now, we might be poorer, but will will still have lots of bombs and missiles. No, they will continue to grow themselves in an ecenomic fashion. They are really a capitalist autocracy, as opposed to anything communist these days.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Remember that the term of copyright was only extended in the US. In China the protection term is still life+50years for personally owned works or 50 years since publication for companies. The film is public domain in China. (Incidentally a film published in 1937 is also public domain in Australia.)
What's really funny is that a country with a fake Disneyland in it is selling us half of our own DRM-infested media players that might refuse to play us our own DRM-encrypted Disney crap. Meanwhile a billion people are hiding behind their own firewall and manufacturing DVD players and you know they've got the decrypted versions of all Disney's stuff in there. The purpose of DRM is to prevent anyone from popping a hole in a huge, thin bubble of lame encryption to be applied everywhere, in the fear that unprotected bits might leak through and fall under anyone else's control anywhere which would render the whole exercise rather pointless. If the bubble is popped in China then only the Great Firewall stands in the way. Maybe they need to implement stronger DRM encryption at various redundant points along every one of the undersea cables, and lobby the government to mandate an intellectual property protection standard for all radio transmitters launched into space. Is Disney going to prevent the country with the fake Disneyland from manufacturing the players that implement their bubble of DRM by hiding secret encryption keys from us and occasionally refusing to decrypt/play things for us? Disney might need to reconsider who deserves its trust.
The Shijinshan Amusement Park was built more than 20 years ago. Not sure if the PRC has established diplomatic ties with USA yet, yet alone intellectual property treaties. Also, twenty years ago there was practically not such thing as "intellectual property" in China (ah, the good old days). There was a very famous brand of candy from Shanghai named "Mickymouse", with Disney's Mickymouse as its logo. Later, when China opened its market to the West, Disney realized that in China, the "Mickymouse" trademark was legally owned by the candy factory, so it paid big money and brought it back. It was reported in the newspaper that many Chinese children cried that day as their beloved "Mickymouse" candy was no more (oh, the evil Americans)...
China, however, signed a treaty saying they'd respect foreign copyrights. In the US, treaties have as much power as federal law. More importantly, violating a treaty pisses off other countries who may decide to start imposing sanctions and so forth.
"I presume you're talking about "them" calling "us" and saying "we've decided not to buy your government-issued debt anymore." Problem is, what would they invest their 1 trillion in government funds in then? It's not like there are that many - if any - safer alternatives? Euro bonds? Uhhh ... what was that long-term growth rate again? Yen? yeah right, the Chinese? Swiss Francs? Uhh ... sure it's a hard currency, but how much of it can you liquidate when you need to? Dollars are still the best place to park savings."
What unutterable bollox. The US is the most insane investment a person could make right now. While the sheer inertia of trading methods keeps the dollar popular, the dollar itself if far from it...
Sterling, Euros, Yen!!!, they are all far more sensible places to put your cash these days, and the US is just terrified by this.
Of the two, I'd buy shares in Disneyland China (and no I don't care two hoots about American copyright law if America doesn't care two hoots about a nation's sovereignty - yes I talking Iraq - and not its not irrelivant. They're haveing the equiverlant of a 9/11 every month. That, to my mind is relevant in almost any discussion until it ends).
No I don't hate America. But I sure as hell hate its current polotics, and fundeMentalist interpretation of capitalism. Which as many posts have already pointed out, mean that in practice, China is actually closer to 'true' capitalism than they.
Yes, yes. This is Flamebait. But so is this agressive hypocracy spouted by the money mad global expantionist, overly competative expounders of "China is evil". And its getting on my nerves. [/rant]
Because you can - or because you should?
What the hell is futuristic about this? We have been there for a long time!!
Who the hell do you think conquered India? The British? Well, yes, I grant you they were British, but they sure as hell weren't the British Government. It was the British East India Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey), who were big enough at the time to make Ford, Coca Cola and Microsoft look like a crocked hat.
Note in the battle mentioned above, John Company fought against the Indian Princes and the French East India Company.
The equivalent today would be Halliburton fighting in Iraq against the Iraquis and Shell.
Modding this up would introduce Americans to a bit of history!!
I live in Japan, and I saw this story on the news a couple of days ago. The most interesting thing was they asked an employee at the park what she thought about copying Disney Hong Kong and her response was "They copied us." It wouldn't surprise me if that isn't the official required response...
The pound (GBP) passed the $2 mark in value recently, aside from small fluctuations our currency has been strengthening against the dollar for the last 10 years. The pound is stable and a far better currency in which to invest. We're a tiny country yet still an economic powerhouse. The long term stability of the pound is part reason for that. What's more is there is no indication that the current trend will reverse.
At this rate if it weren't for the US's strict immigration laws I could sell my property here, move across the atlantic, buy a house that is twice the size of the one I have here and live off the spare cash I have for years. It's almost like travelling to a second world country.
Don't blame me - this
I believe Oxford owns the copyright to the King James Version. America pretty much ignored that and it is in the public domain in this country. That would probably be the biggest IP disrespect in the history of mankind.
I think IP respect between countries is necessary for economic ties between countries and for the greater good, but a country doesn't have to abide by another country's laws if they don't want to. However, agreeing to being in the WTO may change responsibilities.
The WTO did not exist in the 1700's when we chucked the copyright of the KJV.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Yeah, you can even check the Lion King - Kimba ripoff...
not just fairy tales. The Lion King is ripped from Osamu Tezuka's Jungle Taitei aka Kimba the white lion. If you check it out they took pretty much every shot (especially the pride rock) also they changed it from his evil aunt to evil uncle and from mother to father dieing and bam! they call it original. In 2002 or 03 there was an asian film festival in Ontario, Canada i believe, and they were going to show Jungle Taitei and Disney sued them or tried to stop them with some severe act of some kind. Talk about cover ups!
Balderdash!
The reason for their extemely low prices is simple supply and demand. Labor is dead-cheap because there is so much of it. I got a beautiful painting about an hour outside of Guangzhou for about a buck twenty five. The painting is a very large, rougly seven-feet wide one. For the record, the painter was not a slave. It's just that that's the price he can charge, since there were literally thousands of others I could have gone to.
Now, I'm not saying that there isn't any slave labor in China. I have no idea; there probably are some instances of it, just like there probably are instances of it here in the US. But it is simply not what drives their economy. It's not even remotely related to their success as an economy.
Pollution is another matter. I've never been to a traditionally smoggy city in the US (say, Houston or LA) but Guangzhou had a blanket of smog a couple hundred feet above the surface at all times... I can actually remember the air being "heavy." It was a releif to get out to countryside, so we could see the sun again.
groupthink: It's good for self-esteem.
No.
But I have been to plenty of places with similar labour costs. In fact, I have lived in one for a while.
While what you are telling is correct for a painting, textiles and other "light industry", labour is only a minor part of the BOM for an heavy industrial product like a car, bicycle or modern toys. Environmental control on the other side is. It may account for 40%+ of the costs of plastics, 30%+ of the costs of metals (those pesky sulfur emissions controls, water quality control, cleanup of land destroyed by open mining, etc), 70%+ for some paints and coatings, 100%+ for some electronic components and so on.
Let's apply that to a pedal cycle - you have around 1 hour labour costs during initial assembly (everything including tires and all components), rest is BOM. The BOM difference between Chinese plastics, metal, tires, etc and _fully_ western Europe makes due to environmental regulations and mandatory acceptance for recycling for a bicycle can be close to 100 pounds (200$) at the moment. Compared to that the labour cost difference is negligible. If we look at any other product that makes heavy use of metal or plastics we get roughly the same proportions.
Further to this, if we look back at "light industry" like clothing the difference in quality between sweatshop labour and labour working in better conditions is also quite apparent. Compare a shirt made in China with one done in Bangladesh, Cambodja or Turkey. The quality difference is striking and these can nowdays often compete on quality alone (if the market is not perverted by "branding").
If China is left to compete on price of labour alone with the BOM costs equalized by mandatory environmental controls it will lose straight away to everyone else on quality alone.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Nope Pinocchio the Disney film came out exactly 50 years after Carlo Collodi the Italian author of "Le avventure di Pinocchio" died. Which means that it was in production when it was in copyright, and Disney released it as soon as they no longer needed to pay copyrights.
Or for something more recent you might try reading the Curious Clownfish by Eric Maddern published 1987 and compare it to the Disney film Finding Nemo and ask why Eric Maddern has not received one penny from Disney.
Disney like copyright when it suites them, and at no other time. What I would like is for Disney to be forced to pay back compensation to the holders of the Pinocchio and other copyrights with interest for the time they infringed on their copyrights based on the new exteneded copyright periods. If the mouse deservers 90 years in the eyes of Disney, then so does Pinocchio. Perhaps then they would not be so keen on extending copyrights.
There's also been a bit of speculation about the purposeful devaluing of the USD specifically to hurt China, since they've pegged their money to the USD.
No, I think he means Kimba
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
On the other hand, China is a sovereign nation, and are not subject to US laws, despite US corporations wishing that they were.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"based on his manga of the same title which started in 1950" (just in case people think this is a rip-off of the Lion King - seems it's more the other way round!)
which is totally what she said
Certainly you cannot expect quality for a place like China.
Erh... you DO know that something quite similar was said about Japanese electronics about 40 years ago, yes?
First you copy, then you improve, then you take over the market because you're better AND cheaper.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Hey kids! Let's get a picture with Cindererra!"
I'm going to hell for that comment.
Actually, Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh were bought and paid for by Disney. There was some controversy by the family of Milne over the transfer, but those two are completely legit, and Disney is within its rights to protect those fully.
The others, as the sibling post reports (but missing the joke), are public domain. Disney's representations of them are fairly copyrightable, but ANYONE can write a story called "Snow White", "Sleeping Beauty", etc. and be untouchable. There's a line of books and DVDs from a company called "Good Times" productions that does cartoons and CGI on almost every Disney PD-based story, and they're all within the letter of the law. Some of them are quite good.
Shesh, people need to learn more economics. Trade Deficit and National Debt matter very little in fact. Mercantilists in the 16-18th centuries made the same arguements that a trade deficit makes other countries richer while it takes away from us, which is completely wrong. We've run a trade deficit for deacdes - are we not the richest country in the world? This has been disproven hundreds of times by hundreds of economists that this is simply false.
Secondly, national debt is really a misnomer. It's something that people worry about, but they shouldn't, why? Because the gov't can NEVER go bankrupt. Ask any macroeconomist - it's not possible. Look at the Japanese, they have 1.5x their GDP worth of national debt and they're the second richest country in the world. A gov't can't go bankrupt because they can just print more money, you may get hyperinflation, but the govt can still just print more money (I'm not saying this is good monetary policy by any means, just stating the obvious). Worry about your own check books and less about the governments.
Lastly, if the chinese dumped our bonds, all it would do is lower the price of the US Dollar and make our exports extremely cheap. So we actually have China by the balls - they can't compete with a low-cost US economy.
Disclaimer: My wife is a purchaser for a fashion conglomerate, and I have somewhat of an interest in the outsourcing of fashion manufacturing.
If you are implying that Chinese textiles are inferior to those of Bangladesh, Cambodia, or Turkey, then you are incorrect. These places that you mention, often along with the Philippines, India, and Vietnam are contracted for lower-end fashion. (Although Turkey does manufacture very high-quality leather goods). Higher-end fashion now mostly manufacturers in China or Hong Kong (for even higher-end fashion). The quality has improved so much that higher-end fashions have no problems moving their base of manufacturing to China. Sure - China still makes crappy $2 socks for Walmart, but it also makes that $800 cocktail gown at BCBG. The move upwards has a lot to do with Vietnam going into WTO and upping its textiles quotas for the U.S.
What you have said about Chinese textiles was true 5-7 years ago. Not anymore. They no longer don't exclusively make cheap stuff.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.