‘What is China?’ Video Rip-off
David
Posted on October 18th, 2011
This evening I came home to catch up on reading my feeds and discovered this wonderful animation giving an overview of What is China? in 10 minutes by someone called ‘Eno Jin’. As I watched it I realised something sounded familiar, then I realised that the voiceover was reading almost word-for-word a series of posts I wrote back in 2009 called ‘Chinese Culture 101‘.
Except for the second segment on the economy of China the script is pretty much 100% taken from my series of articles and while I have no problem with my work being reused non-commercially, since I put a lot of hard work into researching it, I do object to:
- Not being asked – it would have been a common courtesy to ask if it was ok to use my work
- Not being given credit – at the end Eno Jin only credits him/herself and Wikipedia
I’ve not yet been able to track down whoever Eno Jin is but would ask that s/he contact me since I find it very disingenuous behaviour. I guess since it’s all about China I shouldn’t really be surprised!
Update: Eno contacted me and said it’s an honest mistake that he didn’t credit me. C’est la vie.
Related posts you might like:
He says he’s Assistant to Chief Creative Officer, Very creative indeed.
Btw, I wasn’t aware of the awesome series you’ve written on China – hats down to that, very well written and documented. Although in the history part, I would go into the 1911-1949 period more in depth (like mentioning Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek would make sense to me). But then again, I’m looking at all this from a different country
I’m trying to make a series of posts about Taiwan and the things I observe (check here), but I’m not as organized as you. Maybe when I cover all the important topics, I will improve that.
Hope you get credit you deserve. Keep on rockin’ in ‘Kong
Indeed, very surprised to see this from someone working at Ogilvy & Mather.
I’d love to do another series at some point which goes deeper in the modern history of China and the Communist / Nationalist split. I was trying to keep the original short and concise so had to skim over a lot of stuff.
Will look forward to seeing Taiwan 101 at some point!
Is it possible that someone else just copy pasted your work to Wikipedia?
I doubt it. My articles were basically a large summary – not Wikipedia quality / fact-checked well enough.
Hey David.
quite agree with you. It is in China, copyright issues are very common. I know I made this mistake but not on purpose.
it was posted on a Chinese version of Youtube in my name as an individual work. i used it as a portfolio at the start. but in 2 months time. it grew so popular like overnight. viral spread. it was already late when i noticed. you know, websites copy each other. they use stuff from Youtube and … without even informing me, whom you think have plagerism problem. but i assure you i have never allowed anyone to publish this video officially and i haven’t made any profit or direct popularity with it. and again i apologize.
The two videos are now known within Ogilvy and i have put your credit on this version. i have put in your name, your work and the link to your article.
and i learned a lesson for my second video. I apologize for the mistake ive made and I feel very sorry if it hurt you.
Hi Eno – thanks for your comment.
I really liked your video so do keep making them, just don’t forget attribution in the future!
see. It’s been a lesson for me. i will keep going.
As a European, let me use what I just learned.
In a Chinese reaction seeking harmony, I want to express you my respect for the texts. I hope you get to settle things with Mr. Eno Jin, but for the concise language and clear concept structuring, I want to give you credit.
Have you tried to contact the creator of the video? I think as soon as you would be mentioned as a contributor, this could be fair for both of you. Your words can now spread in Eno Jin’s crisp visual language.
All the best.
PS: I will mention you as a co-creator when sharing this. That will be my part of setting the record right
Hey there, I saw the video then I make a quick search, then I found here.
Actually, I’m angry with the video because the video style is totally copied from
Kanichi Tanaka JAPAN- The Strange Country.
But in the end I found that they actually copied their script from you!
But since this is about China, I’m not that surprise at all.
Very good point about it copying the style of Kanichi Tanaka’s Japan video, although it’s nowhere near as good as that.
For anyone else who’s not see that, I posted about it a while back – http://www.randomwire.com/japan-the-strange-country
When will China ever learn…
Cmon’ dude, Kanichi Tanaka’s video is way better… and cooler.
Hi David, Since you already found Eno Jin’s Weibo, I would suggest you to contact him on it.
Hi David, for one thing. I was directed to your blog thru’ the video. Interesting insights. Will drop by again to read more stuff.
I certainly understand your objection to the video’s creator not requesting permission or giving credit for using your articles, but its ironically appropriate that in a video summarizing China, the script (and possibly the video style) are copied from the work of others. Copying without attribution has a long history in China and, despite laws against it, continues to be prevalent in modern China. Without the video on YouTube, I might not have come across your website and excellent series of articles on China.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI44DUBhsPc
please read the description.
Thanks for providing the description there Ruby.
I’m sitting in Shanghai and I’d like to have a non-YouTube version of this Eno Jin/David’s movie clip – anyone have a link?
Thank you Eno Jin for videos you made. It led me to this nice Blog as well. David, Great blog BTW.
Eyu
Yes, nice Video, I saw it yesterday at a presentation in Beijing, searched for it on google, and google led me to this website. It is a pity that you weren’t mentioned at first but see how many people have just found your blog because of this! As I liked the video a lot, I am excited to read your posts!
Kind regards,
Christina Grohmann
Thanks Christina, glad you like the blog!!