PREFACE Guidance and Compliance:The Way to China's Entertainment Market

China is a rising star in the entertainment industry. As statistics show, China has grown to be the world's second largest film market, having t he largest number of screens and the third largest amount of films produced. Cited from Opinions on Speeding up the Construction of Cinemas and Promoting the Prosperity of the Film Market, published by China Film Administration. Meanwhile, China is also the world's largest TV drama producer and broadcaster. Cited from National Radio and Television Administration. In China's online audio-visual industry, by the end of December 2018, the number of online video (including short videos) users has reached 725 million. Cited from 2019 China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report, published by China Netcasting Services Association. China's music industry has also obtained a huge success in recent years. The total scale of the music industry in 2018 reached RMB 374.795 billion yuan. Cited from 2019 China Music Industry Development Report, published by Music Industry Promotion Committee. Besides, in tourism and its related industries, the added value was RMB 4.1478 trillion yuan in 2018, accounting for 4.51% of GDP. Cited from National Bureau of Statistics.

Although the global Covid-19 pandemic has produced varying degrees of adverse impacts on the entertainment industry in different countries, it has also brought many opportunities for development of the industries. Generally, fusion of the entertainment industry and the Internet has become more fruitful and closer. It is undeniable that films and TV series filming, stage performance and major sporting events have suff ered from Covid-19. Yet, what should not be ignored is the strong vitality shown by Internet audio-visual program (short video, long video, live broadcast), computer games and online virtual art exhibitions under the epidemic situation of Covid-19.

As is known to all, China's entertainment industry is far from reaching the ceiling. With the development of the pan-entertainment consumer economy development model and the increasing demand for fragmented entertainment by mobile network users, the industry has ushered in a period of rapid development and the need of eff ective communication internationally is more pronounced. The law faithfully refl ects this trend:since 2016 the focus has been on the growth of China-Foreign exchange and cooperation, the authorization, development, and protection of intellectual property. China has promulgated a series of laws, regulations, and policies, hoping to further regulate market development and activate market potential through the implementation of law. For instance, in 2019's Regulation on the Implementation of the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China,it is clearly stated that China will broaden the cultural industry market channels and increase the content production to better meet the needs of foreign investment. Similarly, there is a huge potential that many foreign companies are willing to take a share in the China's entertainment market.

Although China-Foreign cooperation and investment have been unleashed on a macro level, there are still some practical diffi culties in individual cases due to diff erences in law, compliance concepts, and language barriers. Grasping this situation as a practicing lawyer and specialist in China's entertainment law and foreign investment and financing, I set out to write this book for foreign companies, individuals, and other interested people, so they can better understand and enter China's entertainment market.

This book is probably the first attempt to systematically review the laws, regulations, and policies (as of January 1, 2020) related to the China's entertainment industry in English, to combine a large number of front-line legal service work experience, judicial precedents, etc., and to present a more systematic and pragmatic presentation of the China's entertainment market and related laws. It is to your advantage to devour this work in its entirety, for you will undoubtedly have an additional edge when exploring the entertainment market in China. This book only selects six fields in the entertainment industry for analysis: film, television, online audio-visual, stage performance, music, and advertising. The topics of e-commerce livestreaming, infl uencer marketing, art culture, sports, and video games have not been covered for the time being;these parts may also be compiled in the next installment of this book in the future.

In the process of writing and revising this book, I have read a lot of industry data and literature. Here, I would like to thank all the statisticians and authors of the cited data. I also would like to thank Hop Dang, Ramon Huang who have led me to this path and encourage me to go further.

At the same time, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Chenyi Sun, William Chappel, and team members Jennifer Shi, Jane Mao, and Key Wu for their wholehearted efforts to this book, and my family, and my dear friends Heinz Holba, Yingzhi Bi, Alban Renaud and the firm I work in, for their strong support for my work. And you, who takes an interest in this book and spend your time reading.

Shiwen Zhang

June,2020