What are the limits of sharing movies/series on these Forums?

[Weyland]

As the title says; what limits do the moderators of these forums set when it comes to sharing media/recommendations? When it comes to consuming Chinese media abroad you often have to go be inventive in your search for said material, or at least you had to. With channels such as these, "感谢订阅中剧独播” and "Caravan中文剧场“ posting legitimate versions of Chinese shows on Youtube the Chinese audience studying abroad seems to have it much easier than their mainland counterparts. But, with the relations between Chinese media and Youtube being on the rather volatile side even these channels sometimes get taken offline/unlisted for a short period of time before they return to Youtube without seemingly any changes. 

China seems to put more value on generating soft power abroad than it puts in actually generate monetary value from licensing out its shows. So, can we just link to whatever show is on Youtube?

This is something I'd like to know as for shows such as 《潜伏》, which is posted on Youtube but not officially, this distinction between what is illegal and what is merely overlooked because it was released in 2009. Because the station that aired the program official channel on Youtube uploads seemingly everything it airs in China, at least everything that has aired since 2016-2017. 

Then there is the issue with documentaries. Some documentaries are made by small companies, like 《大三儿》, that don't have a media channel on Youtube. While others documentaries are, like 《人间世》, produced by a big distribution company and published on Youtube. 

Lastly, what about websites that serve as intermediaries to such content? I use 蛋蛋赞影院‘s China section to find recommendations of what to watch next. It's great for searching movies/series/variety shows/anime by year/popularity/score/genre, but it also hosts said media on the website (albeit most of the videos are dead for me). But, I assume this website is meant for use within mainland China as most of these (if not all of the recent ones) are available on Youtube. 

So, my question is; to what extent must we self-regulate/censor in posting links? Or can we just assume that until China establish a proper way of viewing these shows in some sort of Netflix model we don't have to worry about the "legitimacy" of the uploader said content as China and its state media companies ultimate goal is the proliferation of the content. 

Feel free to remove the links in this post, but if you do then please add an (X) behind the word that text/title/word that is now without link. 

P.S. On a related note; I've been trying to buy "隐形守护者” on steam for the LONGEST time now. Yet, it's still region locked to China/HK/Taiwan because... I guess they assumed nobody wanted to buy it abroad. 

[roddy]

We're laid back about links to anything that is mass market and not easily available on a legit / paid basis. Chinese TV shows, novels, audiobooks - point out the legitimate way to get hold of it if you can, but we're unlikely to go checking. Even if there's a 'proper' Chinese streaming site with a particular show, we're well aware Youtube may be easier to use for a beginner in the US.

 

What will get posts / accounts removed is piracy of Chinese learning material - that's a much smaller market and we could have a real impact on small businesses, so we've always been pretty tight on that.

 

So link to a PDF of a new Liu Cixin novel, and we're unlikely to do more than ask you to also link to amazon.cn / dangdang / wherever. Link to a PDF of a new graded reader and we'll put our admin hats on.

 

This has been the policy for years.

 

Probably also best not to link to torrent / download type sites directly, but rather suggest a search. Those sites come and go, are often worthy of a NSFW tag, and could load up computers of less savvy users with dodgy software / viruses. 

[StChris]

On 11/21/2019 at 10:17 PM, Weyland said:

P.S. On a related note; I've been trying to buy "隐形守护者” on steam for the LONGEST time now. Yet, it's still region locked to China/HK/Taiwan because... I guess they assumed nobody wanted to buy it abroad. 

 

That looks interesting (an FMV game?). Even though I'm in China, the game doesn't show up when I log-in with my UK account, so I'm thinking of creating a Chinese one. I hope it doesn't require Chinese ID. Are there any other Chinese Steam exclusive games you can recommend?

[Weyland]

22 minutes ago, StChris said:

Are there any other Chinese Steam exclusive games you can recommend?

Once I opened the Twitch.TV Chinese streamer section and they were all playing this game. That's how I encountered it. I'm not really that into the Chinese gaming scene. Tencent has a gaming store called "WeGame", which has Chinese games (albeit I haven't used it myself). 

Otherwise you could search the steam database for games with Chinese support.Though, it doesn't distinguish between Chinese localization and actual voice acting.