While Crazy Stone made the whole nation's audience laugh their heads off, it also made countless people in the film and television industry jealous.
No other movie could attract more people than Crazy Stone. From the moment the movie was released, it gave people in the industry the image of a powerful gold-swallowing beast.
The film had an investment of more than 10 million RMB, and within a few hours of screening, the box office earnings had reached the same level as the total investment. Within two days and a few hours, the box office earnings had exceeded 200 million RMB. Before this, even the best scriptwriter and director in China could not imagine such a situation. But, a modern comedy film like Crazy Stone had done it.
After the weekend, it was Monday.
Because it was a weekday, the attendance of the movie in the major cinemas was slightly lower. However, on Monday, it still earned a strong box office of 75 million yuan.
Now, this comedy not only exploded on the Internet and among the audience, but even in the eyes of media like Mother Yang, it became a synonym for miracles and the new hope of Hua Xia's film industry.
Ever since the movie earned 84 million yuan in the box office on the first day of its release, every news program of Mother Yang had to report this result. It was not because Li Mu and Mother Yang had a good relationship. The most important thing was that the box office of Crazy Stone suddenly skyrocketed at this point, which had two far-reaching effects on the whole society.
First, such a comedy did indeed sweep away the psychological pressure and haze that SARS brought to people in the past few months. It had an extraordinary effect and significance on eliminating the impact of SARS.
Second, the box office of this movie let the higher-ups see the huge potential of Hua Xia's film industry!
If the first point was only a temporary promotion, then the second point had a long-term and far-reaching impact on the film industry.
The country had always attached great importance to the development of the cultural industry. Right now, it was a good opportunity to strike while the iron was hot and consolidate the results of Crazy Stone. The major changes brought about by this movie could let the audience understand and accept the cinema chain more. It could also make the film and television industry and the people who were about to enter the film and television industry more confident, thus contributing more excellent works to the industry.
Just as Crazy Stone's box office was advancing by leaps and bounds, the stubborn disease that plagued all the cinema chains began to appear and spread rapidly. This stubborn disease was piracy.
The earliest pirated versions appeared in the traditional pirated disc industry. Because "Crazy Stone" was too popular, the producers of pirated discs were desperate to solve the problem of pirated discs. For a time, many pirated discs appeared on the market, with prices ranging from 5 to 10 yuan.
And the content of these discs were all the source material that was stolen from the cinema.
In this day and age, the image quality of portable video cameras was relatively poor, especially in cinemas where the lighting was much worse than outdoors. Basically, once the lights in the cinema were turned off, the images captured by the portable video cameras would be full of noise. Also, due to the lack of anti-shake function, the images would flicker more severely. If one watched it for a long time, they would even feel motion sickness. What was more annoying was that they could often see other people's heads or bodies. If there was a member of the audience who got up to go to the toilet during the entire process of the pirated video, it would greatly affect the image.
The most frightening thing was that the pirated recording equipment was not up to standard. Furthermore, the ambient noise in the cinema was extremely loud, so the collection of the original sound was relatively poor. Not only were there all kinds of noises and whispers from the audience, but there were also bursts of thunderous laughter.
Pirates who relied on pirated videos to make a living were most afraid of pirated comedies. When the audience laughed in the cinema, the background sound of the movie could not be heard at all. This was an even greater destruction to the experience of watching the movie.
But even so, the speed of pirated videos was still very fast.
In many small places without cinema chains, the audience could not wait to watch the movie, so they were forced to choose pirated versions. In some places with cinema chains, some of the audience could not buy tickets and turned to pirated versions, or they were not willing to spend tens of yuan to buy a movie ticket, so they chose the slightly cheaper pirated discs.
When pirated versions began to flood the market, Li Mu felt that it was time to find a way to crack down on them.
Due to the special national conditions, the protection of copyrights in China started very late. Counterfeits and imitations had always been rampant in China. Even when Boss Ma and the rest of Le Tao's team were arrested and prosecuted, it did not bring a major blow to the domestic counterfeiting industry. When Le Tao collapsed, these illegal factories and workshops directly sold their products online, avoiding the edge of e-commerce.
There was no end to the counterfeiting and imitations, not to mention the pirated discs.
Li Mu consulted the legal team of Makino Technology, and the person in charge of the legal department told him, "Li Zong, if we want to crack down on the pirated version of 'Crazy Stone', then we must first set up a special task force, and then hire a group of temporary staff to help us collect information on the production and sale of pirated discs throughout the country. Once there is a clue, report it to the local cultural department in time, and ask the local cultural department and the public security department to cooperate in the investigation. If you have decided to do it, I will start preparing now."
Li Mu frowned and asked him, "Why do we need to set up our own task force to do the investigation?"
The person in charge of the legal department explained, "At this stage, the feasibility of using a company as the main body to crack down on piracy is not high. According to past experience, if you want to crack down on piracy, the first step is to provide evidence. This is also the main solution to solve copyright cases. Whoever makes the claim has to provide the evidence."
Li Mu could not help but smack his lips.
Whoever makes the claim has to provide the evidence. This means that if you want to sue someone for copyright infringement, you must first have direct evidence of the other party's infringement. Moreover, there are many levels of affiliation between the production and sale of discs. If you just found a person selling pirated discs on the street and reported him to the relevant authorities, the relevant authorities have no obligation to use him as a breakthrough point to investigate the person who sold the pirated discs. Their most likely solution is to directly impose administrative punishment on the person selling the pirated discs.
This way, the actual attack on the pirated discs is equivalent to scratching an itch through the boot. It is not even considered a serious injury.
From Li Mu's point of view, if you want to crack down on piracy, you must first solve the source. The source is to get rid of the group of people who produce the pirated discs. If they are eliminated, the pirated discs distribution network will be in an awkward situation.
At this time, the person in charge of the legal department said, "According to the current solution, if we want to report the pirated discs, we must first find the pirated discs and complete the evidence collection. This will require a certain amount of time."
Li Mu said, "Even if we send enough people to search for the evidence and clues of the pirated discs and report it to the relevant authorities, and then wait for the relevant authorities to investigate. This process will take at least ten days to half a month. By that time, our discs will have already been taken off the screen."
The person in charge of the legal department said, "Currently, we do not have a better solution. Unless we can directly seek help from the higher authorities of the Cultural Department or the Public Security Department."
Li Mu pondered for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Seeking help from the higher authorities is naturally a good solution. However, it goes against the current legal principles and is considered to be going through the back door. If word of this gets out, it will affect the company's image. What we need to do is to solve this matter without violating the current legal principles."
The person in charge of the legal department said awkwardly, "In this case, we really do not have a good solution for the time being. We can only do our best to collect clues and then do our best to cooperate with the local law enforcement to crack down on the pirated discs."
Li Mu waved his hand and said, "This is too inefficient. We need to get rid of a group of pirated discs as soon as possible and teach the entire pirated discs a lesson."
Speaking up to this point, Li Mu suddenly had an idea. He said, "How about this? It is too slow for us to investigate on our own. Even if we go to different places, it is very likely that we will not be able to break through the local network of the other party. When that time comes, the other party may very well hide in front of us without any clues. Instead of this, we might as well release the power of investigation to the public."
The person in charge of the legal department asked, "You mean to call on the public to provide clues?"
"Yes!" Li Mu nodded and said with a smile, "I will first get Makino Image to release a statement to resist piracy and then attach a reward information in the statement. For example, anyone who reports to Makino Image information about the production line of the pirated Crazy Stone will be rewarded with 100,000 RMB for each production line after verification. Anyone who reports to Makino Technology information about the illegal merchants who sell the pirated Crazy Stone will be rewarded with 2,000 RMB for each seller after verification."
Speaking up to this point, Li Mu added, "I will push this news to all the users in the country through YY. At the same time, I will open a reporting channel on YY. When the information from the netizens is gathered on the website, your team will divide it into regions. Then, the staff in charge of the region will report to the local culture department and law enforcement department."
Although Makino Image was not a law enforcement agency, it was still a corporate entity. It had the right to release information about the pirated copyright infringement to the public. Therefore, this step would not violate any laws and regulations. It was completely reasonable and legal.
The one thing Li Mu did not lack was money. Therefore, he could use money to turn the battle between the enterprise and the lawbreakers into a battle between the public and the lawbreakers.
Regardless of whether it was the producer or the seller of the pirated copyright, it was impossible to completely conceal their tracks. No matter how well they hid, once they could get a huge sum of money by reporting them, they would never have a day of peace. They might even be reported by the people around them, unless they stopped the infringement immediately.
Successfully reporting a production line would earn them 100,000 RMB. In this era, 100,000 RMB could buy a small two-bedroom apartment in a third-tier city, and a large three-bedroom apartment in a fifth-tier city. With such a high reward, every lawbreaker who produced the pirated copyright would fall into a panic. This was because someone around them might sell them for 100,000 RMB.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
