Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bizarro Mickey Mouse: Part Two

Last week, we covered the bizarre evil clone of Mickey Mouse promoting Palestinian bombing. On the other lighter end of the spectrum, we have the recently-discovered Shijingshan Amusement Park in China. The amazing thing about the park is that it's basically a small-scale replica of Disneyland. Somehow, the Chinese managed to keep it a secret until May 2007. Not allowing people to come in or out of the country probably helped. The funniest part about this story to me is how the Chinese tried to say that it wasn't a copy of Disneyland. Take a look at some of the costumed characters. There's Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, even Shrek! Yeah, that's a coincidence.

The interesting thing is that, even though the Chinese quickly took these characters off the park when news broke on it, the Chinese themselves have a very casual attitude towards copyrights. My favorite quote by a Chinese housewife: "I don’t understand why that is such a big problem. Shouldn’t others be able to use those characters besides [Disney]?" Uh, no. That's what copyright means.

Best link on this debacle is at Japan Probe.

2 comments:

Maurice Mitchell said...

Great story and the most laughable example of copyright infringement I've ever seen.
Best quotes:
The President of the park angrily saying, "No. That is a cat with big ears. Look more carefully please."
The quote of the final newscaster saying, "China is stately by complaining that economy is more important than copyright."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FkwVP4nQmKM

Nigel G Mitchell said...

I didn't even hear that quote. Funny stuff. And what's that other animal, a white swan with a fat beak?