Cultural Control and Globalization in Asia: Copyright, Piracy and Cinema

This book challenges the prevailing view of cinema and cinema culture that Hollywood/the US creates, produces and exports, with other countries importing, sometimes modifying and sometimes pirating 'original' American work. Instead the book argues that the 'original ideas' which underpin the moneymaking activities of the 'creative industries', and for which 'ownership' is secured through copyright, are often imported, 'borrowed' and modified by Hollywood itself from other cultures and national cinemas. The book considers especially Chinese and Korean cinema, and film 'piracy' in these countries, to show that ideas of cultural ownership and copyright are not as straightforward as they may at first seem, and that copyright is perhaps primarily a lever through which cultural control is exercised by the cultural big business of the dominant power.