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China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows
dryriver (1010635) writes in with news that the Chinese government has had enough of the antics of doctor Sheldon Lee Cooper. "Chinese authorities have ordered video streaming websites in the country to stop showing four popular American TV shows, including The Big Bang Theory and The Good Wife, senior staff from two sites said Sunday. The move suggests government attention is intensifying on the online streaming industry, which is freer than state television and China's cinemas to show foreign productions and other content and has stretched the boundaries of what can be seen in the country. A spokeswoman for a leading online video site, Youku, said it had received notification on Saturday not to show sitcom The Big Bang Theory, political and legal drama The Good Wife, crime drama NCIS and legal drama The Practice."
China. Not Russia. Yes, I am a fucking moron.
:)
But I ninja'd all the haters who will now repeat this correction, at least.
The road to first post is plagued with face plants.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You seem to assume that all Chinese censorship is purely politically motivated. The Big Bang Theory probably just fails basic quality control standards.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture reports a 3-point increase in the average urban IQ.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
tBBT shows enough pure unadulterated American freedom that is in conflict with sanitized state controlled media.
China isn't the only country whose govts are pissed with pure uncensored internet freedom. Even my Brazil "democracy" has tried to police twitter, facebook, google plus to censure critics of politicians specially right before elections. Remember Turkey has banned twitter and facebook.
Realize that without serious state controlled media, China will fracture into dozens of states. It's internal language, cultural and social disparities rival only the former USSR.
China invented the technique of legalism back in (259 BC – 210 BC) when "China Qin Shi Huang" gave his name to his country, in the past having even censured attempts to use history against current rulers.
Hopefully we can get China to censor Big Bang Theory here in the U.S. too.
Maybe in the past, but the more we centralize everything, the more censorship-tolerant (and surveillance-tolerant) the internet becomes.
It needs to move to p2p, strongly encrypted communication. If it doesn't, it will die under the force of organizations that don't want freedom of communication.
Dont kid yourself: You arent "forced" to pirate it, you choose to because you want the content they produced but dont want to play by their terms.
Maybe that doesnt bug you, but at least be honest about it.
Dont kid yourself: You arent "forced" to pirate it, you choose to because you want the content they produced but dont want to play by their terms.
Dont kid yourself, when people find terms unreasonable, casual copying becomes justifiable.
Ultimately piracy is a delivery problem, not a legal one. Here in Australia if I want to watch Game of Thrones I need to pay Murdoch A$70+ a month and have to do it on Murdoch's time table. Both of these are unacceptable to me. So downloading it is the only acceptable option remaining.
The old system used by HBO and Murdoch's Foxtel is dying a slow death. People dont want to wait for shows to be on, they want to watch them at their own leisure nor do they want to have to pay for 30 channels of bullshit to get 1 show. Piracy isn't a scourge on humanity as Murdoch et al. would like to perpetuate, it's merely the market reacting to conditions they find unacceptable. If you want to see piracy of your show plummet, make it available through as many channels as possible for a reasonable price. The easiest way to do this is to allow anyone to resell it for a flat (per copy) license fee that people will accept.
However they want to continue to prop up outdated ideas like exclusivity. So they will have to accept that piracy is an acceptable alternative.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yes, there's no "need" to pirate per se. But in several cases getting that content legitimately, in Europe, is close to impossible. We are not talking just "delayed release" as the parent poster said, we are also talking about stuff that never, ever, is released commercially in Europe or regions of Europe for whatever reason. Not to mention some European countries like Spain do everything in their power to prevent you from legally purchasing products from other regions, or at least make it much more expensive than it should.
This is different as don't wanting to play by their terms, this is literally having no terms to play with in several cases. And I understand his sentiment, it's a big deal when China can't have those, but when Europe doesn't have US-produced content, shows or articles, nobody gives a damn and we even get called out on pirating stuff we can't purchase without being rich. Please.
Maybe that doesn't bug you, but it's a thing that happens, believe it or not.
I suspect it's more like a form of protectionism. They can't slap some serious tariffs due to WTO or whatever. So in order to protect fledgling local production they do a form of bang-bang control: now you can watch that and now you can't.
One is that they do a pretty good job portraying various kinds of geeks. Since it is a comedy it makes light of unflattering and silly characteristics that those geeks have. Well, many people can't laugh at themselves. Real life Sheldon Coopers can't laugh at themselves any more than the character can, and thus the character would be something they don't like.
Another is jealousy. The characters on the show have generally had a good deal of success in love, despite being geeky, with very pretty women. This is something that many of the real life geeks on Slashdot do not share. Hence, there is jealousy of the characters.
Finally there is the hipster-ish anti-pop culture thing. That somehow, if something is popular, it can't be good. For many geek, part of the identity is being an outcast, being different, and liking different things. So liking something mainstream won't do at all for them, not because they don't actually like it but because it would conflict with their self identity.
Personally, I think it is hilarious. Not quite as good as the IT Crowd, but I enjoy it and it makes me laugh regularly. Being that it is a comedy, that is all I can ask :).
It's maybe becoming more like the TV show "Friends" with everybody in a relationship
That kind of tends to be the pattern in real life as well.