Taiwan Agency Opening in China
Herbert R. Lottman -- 2/2/98
Reports of the opening of an authorized affiliate of the Far East's biggest rights agency in mainland China - the first foreign agency to obtain such a license - turn out to be only the beginning of the story. The lucky applicant is Big Apple Tuttle-Mori of Taiwan, an affiliate of Tokyo's Tuttle-Mori agency, headed by Tom Mori. The stumbling block, according to Big Apple's president Luc Kwanten, was not so much the Chinese government as the Copyright Agency of China, a commercial offshoot of that country's National Copyright Administration, which exercised quasi-monopoly privileges over foreign rights translations. Predictably, Kwanten told PW, the Copyright Administration sought to block the arrival of a private agency.The Copyright Administration theoretically operates 28 branches, one for each province; in fact, only three are considered to be active. It's believed that under the new denationalization policy, government-run enterprises will be closed down, which, in the case of the Copyright Agency, is a healthy development since its staff didn't understand the workings of free-world copyright. It's also true that some Beijing officials preferred to be kept in the dark about the agency's transactions, and a considerable number of unfounded contracts and illegal operations were the consequence. Big Apple Tuttle-Mori expects to be able to tackle the mess, henceforth negotiating legally enforceable contracts and, when possible, speeding up the habitually lengthy payment process. While Western sci-tech and academic publishers traditionally deal directly with their Chinese counterparts, Big Apple will certainly be representing a growing number of U.S. and other Western copyright holders already served by the Tuttle-Mori empire. "It's going to be a tricky business for some time to come," Kwanten warned, "but the future looks good." Back To International---> |
