In the first quarter of 2018, China's movie box office revenue surpassed North America for the first time, ranking first in the world. Statistics from the Chinese official and industry agencies show that China's total box office revenue in the first three months of the year were as high as US$3.17 billion. In contrast, according to comScore, an American media measurement and analytics company, during the same period, the total box office revenue in North America (including the United States and Canada) was US$2.89 billion.
Movie industry is a vitally important part of cultural industry. The industry has repeatedly forecasted that China's movie box office income will exceed North America, but the forecasters do not seem to grasp the right timing, as China's box office has been growing uninterrupted for more than 10 years yet it suddenly stagnated between mid-2016 to mid-2017; now it appears that the industry has once again resumed growing.
China is in a critical period of market transformation and development. In this of time period, the industries related to consumption are the most vital industries, and the cultural industry belongs to such category. It is only that during the development process, the industry is constantly being disrupted. Among various interference factors, the role and value of intellectual property rights are most obvious. In the past, like the actors, the film directors in China could not make much money, yet now there are celebrity movie directors who earn billions; this is the result when knowledge can be transformed into an industry. In this process, guaranteeing intellectual property is of upmost importance.
Nowadays, Japanese idol groups have been introduced into China as an industry, but they too faced quite a number of problems in their development. Japanese idol groups are very mature as an industry; compares this with the idol groups of the Chinese speaking world, from the Little Tigers (Xiao Hu Dui) to Youth Beautiful Girl, from F4 to today's TFBoys are all in fact "professional idol groups", yet these idol groups have never developed into a complete, independent and mature system. In Japan, idol groups are a well-defined industry, different from actors and singers; their purpose is to provide entertainment and to fulfill the fantasies of their fans, in other words, this is IP economy.
This culture-based IP economy has been brought to the extreme in Japanese idol groups. Let us take a look at the Onyanko Club, the progenitor of girl band culture in Japan, planned and launched by the well-known Japanese producer Yasushi Akimoto. The dozens of young girls in the group provided the audience unprecedented experience; the audience had the option of choosing one among many of the group members that they like. The Onyanko Club, established in 1985, was dissolved two years later after the scandals of some members with the group's financial backers became known. The fall of the Onyanko Club gave other idol bands lessons to learn as well as opportunities to grab. Rules have been set-up for girl bands in Japan; first of all, being in relationship has become a definite no-no for girl bands; secondly, almost all girl bands have adopted a graduation system to replace their older members with the newer ones. Take the most successful Morning Musume in the 1990s as example; the group was established in 1997 and has undergone 12 graduations and it is still active in the Japanese entertainment scene. But the most successful girl bands in the world are undoubtedly AKB48 that Yasushi Akimoto launched in the 21st century and several other groups like HKT48, SKE48, and NMB48. These groups are mostly based in small theaters in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Nagoya respectively, and they have won the hearts of numerous fans, mainly male, through their akushukai-s (events where fans get to meet their idols and shake hands with them) and performances. Today, their record sales have exceeded 50 million, and there are numerous other records as well. The training and the life of these girl band members are strictly regulated and they are forbidden to be involved in scandals. It is precisely because these idols are perceived by their fans as "pure" that the fans are willing to pour in their emotions and money on them.
Compares with their Japanese counterparts, under the circumstances of messy capital, not many of the Chinese girl bands can survive, except for SNH48. Even so, the standard and performance of SNH48 are like a watered-down version of the original Japanese AKB48. The SNH48 was originally an experiment of Yasushi Akimoto in China, but as the demand gets larger, SNH48 established sub-units in various places without prior authorization and this infuriated Yasushi Akimoto. In June 2016, the Japanese side officially announced the removal of SNH48 from Japan's 48 Group. Therefore, this matter is still an intellectual property issue, and it involves the content of intellectual property, which includes the form, the content and the management system.
After detaching from the intellectual property system, China is now inundated by girl band; by the end of 2016, it was reported by the media that there were as many as 200 girl bands in various parts of China, and this idol industry had completely become a game of the financed capital.
Final Analysis Conclusion:
The power of capital is enormous, and the capital that pursues profit can become ruthless; only intellectual property rights can keep unrestrained impulses of capital in check. The IP economy and idol industry is a blue ocean, but idols cannot be created easily. If China wants to get something out of this, it must have long-term plan in mind and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights to form sustainable industrial model.
