China's top legislature on Monday reviewed a draft law on the promotion of the film industry that excludes television series and online videos.
The bill was submitted for a second reading to the bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, which runs from Monday to Saturday. The initial reading of the draft film law took place in October 2015, the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.
Some legislators suggested that because TV dramas and online videos - including online dramas and movies -shared some of the characteristics of traditional movies, the law should also cover these cultural products.
However, the suggestion was turned down by the NPC Law Committee, cnr.cn said.
"Compared with traditional movies, online videos are very new cultural products and have been on the rise for only a few years," Zhou Xing, a professor at the School of Art and Communication at Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times.
"Promotion methods for online videos are very different from those for traditional movies, and so is their way of making money. Therefore, we can't use the film law to cover them," Zhou said. "But it doesn't mean that online videos have more legal leeway than movies."
Online cultural products are subject to their own regulatory agencies and practices, which have yet to properly integrate their supervision functions with the law, Zhou said.
He explained that online videos undergo self-censorship from the video streaming websites that host them, followed by supervision from the Cyberspace Administration of China and finally by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
The new draft law further addresses box office fraud, adding a clause requiring that film distribution companies and cinemas not falsify movie ticket sales figures or engage in improper sales and promotion methods.
Those involved in illegal activities will be subject to administrative punishments, including business suspensions, fines of up to 500,000 yuan ($75,000) and outright bans, the draft said.
In March, China's film market watchdog suspended the license of a distributor that committed fraud by inflating box office sales figures for the domestically filmed and produced movie Ip Man 3.
