Synopses & Reviews
Creativity and Its Discontents is a sharp critique of the intellectual property rights (IPR)andndash;based creative economy, particularly as it is embraced or ignored in China. Laikwan Pang argues that the creative economyandmdash;in which creativity is an individual asset to be commodified and protected as propertyandmdash;is an intensification of Western modernity and capitalism at odds with key aspects of Chinese culture. Nevertheless, globalization has compelled China to undertake endeavors involving intellectual property rights. Pang examines China's IPR-compliant industries, as well as its numerous copyright violations. She describes how China promotes intellectual property rights in projects such as the development of cultural tourism in the World Heritage city of Lijiang, the transformation of Hong Kong cinema, and the cultural branding of Beijing. Meanwhile, copyright infringement proliferates, angering international trade organizations. Pang argues that piracy and counterfeiting embody the intimate connection between creativity and copying. She points to the lack of copyright protections for Japanese anime as the motor of China's dynamic anime culture. Theorizing the relationship between knockoffs and appropriation art, Pang offers an incisive interpretation of China's flourishing art scene. Creativity and Its Discontents is a refreshing rejoinder to uncritical celebrations of the creative economy.
Review
andquot;Laikwan Pang's thoroughly engaging study sets a new standard for analysis of the 'creative economy,' not just in China, but in every country where government officials have elevated the pursuit of creativity into industrial policy.andquot;andmdash;Andrew Ross, author of Fast Boat to China
Review
andquot;Making strategic use of the antagonistic role often played by China in the new global economy, Laikwan Pang raises fundamental questions about the hegemonic discourse of creativity as anchored in EuroAmerican traditions of rights, authorship, private property ownership, and reproduction. An admirably ambitiousandmdash;and creativeandmdash;book!andquot;andmdash;Rey Chow, author of Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films
Review
andldquo;The book raises key questions for those interested in understanding the problematic relationship between intellectual property rights and the creative economy: the fetishisation of andlsquo;creativityandrsquo; within discourses surrounding these rights, the contentious role of copying in artistic practice and cultural change, and tensions between cultural diversity and global intellectual property frameworks, to name but a few.... [T]his book contains a great deal that is valuable and interesting.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This volume is, to a significant extent, an attempt to recast the debate over intellectual property rights (IPR) in the context of a broadened definition of creativity and the creative acts of invention and innovation. . . . Readers interested in cultural analysis/critique of the andquot;new economyandquot; would find this text valuable. . . . Recommended.andrdquo;
Review
“Pang presents a nuanced and wide-ranging reflection on creativity.” - Carlos Rojas, Journal of Asian Studies
Review
andldquo;Laikwan Pang offers readers valuable insights into the creative industries in the Peopleandrsquo;s Republic of China against the backdrop of its rise as a global actorandhellip;. [T]he discussion remains broad in scope and informative. It provides many interesting insights such as comparative references to policy choices in other countries, or the important concept of Shanzhai culture in China.andrdquo;
Review
“Pang presents a nuanced and wide-ranging reflection on creativity.” S.J. Gabriel - CHOICE Magazine
Review
andldquo;Pang provokes alternative readings of shanzhai culture as not mediated exclusively by market forces, and this provides a starting point for discussions about cultural creativity, production and circulation in the global creative economy. Specialists of Chinese contemporary art, tourism, cinema and popular culture will find Pangandrsquo;s framing of the historical development of these various culture industries both interesting and informative.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Pang presents a nuanced and wide-ranging reflection on creativity.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Examines the far-reaching implications of intellectual property rights protections in a nation that until the early 1980s forbid all ownership of private property, whether tangible or intellectual.
Synopsis
In Creativity and Its Discontents, film and cultural studies scholar Laikwan Pang offers a complex critical analysis of creativity, creative industries (film or art, for example), and the impact of Western copyright laws on creativity in China. Modern capitalism separates copying from creativity, though the two are intimately connected. The author sees the simultaneous encouragement of creative arts and of intellectual property law in China as resulting from China’s intensified capitalist modernity, but also notes that the valorization of piracy as a resistant alternative rests on the same basic binary of copying and creativity.
Synopsis
Laikwan Pang offers a complex critical analysis of creativity, creative industries, and the impact of Western copyright laws on creativity in China.
About the Author
Laikwan Pang is Professor of Cultural Studies and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the author of The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China and Cultural Control and Globalization in Asia: Copyright, Piracy, and Cinema.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Part I. Understanding Creativity
1. Creativity as a Problem of Modernity 29
2. Creativity as a Product of Labor 47
3. Creativity as a Construct of Rights 67
Part II. China's Creative Industries and IPR Offenses
4. Cultural Policy, Intellectual Property Rights, and Cultural Tourism 89
5. Cinema as a Creative Industry 113
6. Branding the Creative City with Fine Arts 133
7. Animation and Transcultural Signification 161
8. A Semiotics of the Counterfeit Product 183
9. Imitation or Appropriation Arts? 203
Notes 231
Bibliography 261
Index 289