(Chinese Version)

July 13th, 2017. Beijing. Starting from the evening of July 12th, a large number of films and TV series were gradually removed from actfun.com and bilibili.com, two of the largest video-sharing platforms in China.

While all the films and TV series are removed from actfun.com, only part of such contents are withdrawn from bilibili.com. While the majority of removed contents are foreign films and TV series, some of them are Chinese TV series, such as My Chief and My Regiment and A Dream of Red Mansions (directed by Li Shaohong). Other channels on bilibili.com, however, aren’t much affected by this sudden removal.

Some industry analysts commented that these contents might be removed due to copyright protection issues.

While Bilibili.com is known as “the biggest fashion, culture and entertainment community for young Chinese”, actfun.com is basically a video-sharing platform featuring bullet comments. In terms of content acquisition, both platforms reply highly on the upload and sharing of registered users. Of course, bilibili.com has begun to purchase copyrights of some cartoons as it scales. Generally speaking, however, with a huge amount of unauthorized video contents, it is indeed treading in a grey area.

At the beginning of 2017, Youku Tudou removed some contents due to copyright issues. The other weeks, actfun.com also removed some videos for the same reason. However, from every aspect, it seems that this sudden removal of a huge quantity of video contents seems to be more about copyright issues. After all, bilibili.com users can still watch lots of unauthorized documentaries and entertainment shows at present.

In fact, most people prefer to link this sudden removal with the tightening control of internet entertainment contents in recent days.

Since 2017, controls over the entire entertainment industry have tightened, affecting not only entertainment and gossip we media on Sina Weibo and WeChat Official Account, but also video websites and streaming platforms. Earlier, TMTPost already reported that actfun.com, Sina Weibo, ifeng.com were forbidden to “produce and disseminate politics discussion and social commentary video & audio programs that break relevant national rules and regulations and convey negative emotions”, while 30 live streaming platforms (Huya TV, YY TV included) were punished and 12 live show platforms were shut down due to inappropriate behaviors of some streamers.

This June, actfun.com just issued an announcement and initiated a sweeping overhaul of video and audio programs, as required by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television.

Whether it’s a matter of copyright or a reflection of the tightening government control over the entertainment industry, the era when Chinese users can access a large quantity of video contents for free might be gone.

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[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @TMTPost-Chinese note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]      

Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.