Overview

Framing Piracy is the first book to systematically examine film distribution—legal and illegal—in the largest and mostly untapped market in the world: Greater China. Tracing networks of optical disc (VCD, DVD) and online piracy, this book tackles issues of policy, international politics, globalization, and technology. It offers in-depth analyses of the unique market structures and copyright governance regimes in the three territories—China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—and features a wealth of original research, new data on piracy and distribution, and interviews with global film distributors, key government officials, and film pirates. With changes and reforms afoot in China upon its entering the World Trade Organization, this timely book shows that such transformations have far-reaching implications for policy, theory, and practice.

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9780742519794

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Reviews

A deliciously concrete yet profoundly general account of how the media in Greater China sort out their paradoxes-as well as how they negotiate a globalizing and technological order that they had never known before. -- Chin-Chuan Lee, University of Minnesota The information presented in this book is very informative, fresh, and comprehensive, and the analysis provided by the author is important and thoughtful... A significant contribution. -- Junhao Hong, State University of New York at Buffalo This book goes beyond being cutting edge; it begins to define an entire field of study-media distribution-that until now has been relegated to the margins or seen only as an area of interest to students of marketing or management... I plan to use the book in my international communication courses. -- Anandam Kavoori, University of Georgia Wang provides a thorough, scholarly investigation of distribution and piracy in the (very) contemporary filmmaking industry. The author's approach-involving in-depth interviews, field observations, and library and archival research-is exhaustive and precise. Recommended. CHOICE Wang's book is divided into two parts, offering what she calls 'contexts' (historical theoretical, politico-economic-technological), followed by detailed case studies on mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The book focuses on both legal and illegal film distribution... This approach enables Wang to demonstrate the crucial relationships between global, national, regional, and local forces. For those interested in the political economy of the film industry in Greater China, this is a valuable pioneering work, offering a wealth of rich detail largely unavailable elsewhere. The China Journal Shujen Wang's extensive field research and thoughtful analysis unveils the mysteries of media piracy, showing how the fundamental logic of commercial film distribution is changing in our globalizing, hi-tech world. This fascinating study demonstrates why Greater China is at once the most promising and the most problematic market that Hollywood has ever confronted. -- Michael Curtin, University of Wisconsin-Madison Shujen Wang provides a valuable range of contexts, both theoretical and practical...The great merit of this essay lies in its meticulous attention to detailing the link between global production and local distribution under globalism. Journal Of International Communication

A deliciously concrete yet profoundly general account of how the media in Greater China sort out their paradoxes--as well as how they negotiate a globalizing and technological order that they had never known before.--Lee, Chin-Chuan

Author Information

Shujen Wang is associate professor of visual and media arts at Emerson College and a research associate in the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University.

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