Taipei, April 15 (CNA) Chiung Yao, a popular romance novelist and TV drama producer based in Taiwan, accused Monday the scriptwriter of a drama series being aired on China HuNan TV of plagiarising her work "Plum Blossom Scar."
Chiung Yao said in a letter posted on the official microblog of another drama series she produces that she decided to break her silence since her copyright has been severely infringed.
In the public letter addressed to Cai Fuchao, director of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), and Li Jingsheng, head of the SARFT's TV Management Division, Chiung Yao listed the multiple similarities in the China HuNan TV drama series and her "Plum Blossom Scar."
She said she posted the letter because he felt deep pain over the plagiarism, adding that she could have delivered the letter privately, but considering that her plagiarized work has already been broadcast on the TV channel, she decided to make the letter public to cut the time for it to travel across the Taiwan Strait.
Chiung Yao said she had tried to contact the TV station to demand that the plagiarized work not be shown, but to no avail.
Chiung Yao, who is a screenwriter and producer of TV drama series, is currently producing a TV series titled "The Legend of the Plum Blossom Scar." She expressed annoyance that a Chinese scriptwriter under the pen name Yu Zheng has not only copied but also ruined her TV work. Even worse, it has been aired even before her original work.
According to Chiung Yao, back in 1989, she was the first TV drama producer in Taiwan to have made a TV series in China. She said she is pleased to see how the production capacity of China's TV industry has grown over the past 25 years, along with increased cross-strait industry exchanges. However, she added that she could not tolerate the rampant copycat culture in China's TV market.
In response, Yu Zheng said he was stunned and confused by the accusations and said that if there are any similarities between the two dramas, it must be coincidence.
Many of Chiung Yao's works have been made and remade into movies and TV series on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. In the 1990s, TV series adapted from her works continued to be watched in Taiwan and sometimes in China, and were very popular.
(By Evelyn Kao)
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http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201404150050.aspx
