Why didn't/couldn't Jin Yong legally stop his "impersonators?"

[Ken Cheng]

Over the years, a number of anonymous wuxia writers have written, published, and sold a number of Jin Yong novel "prequels" and "sequels" (i.e. for LOCH) under Jin Yong's name (or variations thereof). Often, these novels are packaged exactly like the real thing and even sold in Chinese bookstores side by side with real Jin Yong novels.

These pseudo-Jin Yongs have taken Jin Yong's basic ideas and expanded upon them in ways the original author never intended. Sometimes, their ideas are quite ludicrous (even more so than the TV adaptations in some cases). More likely than not, Jin Yong does not approve of or sanction these.

The question is, why hasn't Jin Yong taken legal action to get these authors and their publishers to stop distributing these books? I don't know how copyright laws in the relevant Asian countries (most likely, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China) work, but surely there must be some laws governing intellectual property rights. These books have been on the shelves for years, and Jin Yong has apparently tolerated them. Why?

[SkineePanda]

He's old. What more can he care about?

[Ken Cheng]

He's old. What more can he care about?

His reputation, and money due to himself and/or his descendents. In the United States, a situation such as this would have resulted in litigation ages ago.

Speaking of which, this isn't even a new problem; these books have been on the market since at least the 1980s (if not longer) when Jin Yong wasn't so elderly and had the energy to take on this fight had he chosen to.

Even today, it'd be his lawyers doing the fighting for him. The most he'd be asked to do is make some statements in court; he can still do that.

[Whsie]

I agree. For a second, I actually thought 9 Yin 9 yang was actually a book written by JY.

[kyss of the sword]

it's a legal knot to unravell. it's reminscient of the bruce lee syndrome, where after bruce lee died, there were serveral people using names similar to his in the movies. the 'fake' jin yong's weren't techniqcally for the most part pretending to be jin yong. they used similar names but (other then palgerising character's and 'created' martial arts) they did not do any thing wrong legally. they didn't use the same name, just similar ones, and back then the law was rather vauge on how much a person could use idea's or borrow from another author's work. when a story becomes rather popular, it becomes recognised as part of 'culture', something we grow up with and no law forbids mentioning culture. as for using the same names for charcaters and the same names for martial arts, they can't really be copywritied. it would be very troublsome to bring it to court as there wasn't any precedent before that time for the case to be referred against. you should check out the case history about D.C.COMICS sueing other comics for creating characters similar to superman, like captain marvel and mircleman. the law only really prevents the story from being copied, not characters. there were also several dracula 'sequals' penned by serveral authors in books and movies through they did not have actual permission from the author. no legel action could be taken because of the immersion of 'dracula' into popular culture.

[Ken Cheng]

back then the law was rather vauge on how much a person could use idea's or borrow from another author's work. when a story becomes rather popular, it becomes recognised as part of 'culture', something we grow up with and no law forbids mentioning culture. as for using the same names for charcaters and the same names for martial arts, they can't really be copywritied. it would be very troublsome to bring it to court as there wasn't any precedent before that time for the case to be referred against.

It is curious. I'm guessing there must be *some* laws governing intellectual property such as the entities created by Jin Yong. After all, don't the television production companies, movie studios, comic book publishers, and video game makers need to obtain a license from Jin Yong to adapt his work for their products? If so, then some kind of intellectual property law must apply.

you should check out the case history about D.C.COMICS sueing other comics for creating characters similar to superman, like captain marvel and mircleman.

If I remember correctly, DC Comics won that lawsuit, and hence, Captain Marvel's comics ceased publication (despite outselling SUPERMAN at one point) for several decades until DC Comics bought Fawcett Comics (publisher of Captain Marvel's comics) and the rights to the Captain Marvel character during the 1970s, and began publishing new adventures of Captain Marvel under the title of SHAZAM! (the Captain Marvel name had been taken by Marvel Comics for one of its heroes during the intervening years).

[WuxiaGem]

That is a good question.

I remember reading somewhere that an estimated 1 billion copies of Jin Yong's books are sold to date but only 300 million of them are legal copies because of (a) illegal translations and (b) illegal copying. Not sure if this statistic is true or not. If it is true, shouldn't JY tackle piracy of his books before tackling piracy of his characters? I would care more if someone is making profit out of books I wrote 100% of than if someone else is profiting from writing books based on my characters.

As for illegal translations and pseudo-JY writers--I think they actually expand JY's business empire rather than detract from it. Many non-Chinese readers would not have had the opportunity to read JY's books were it not for these translations. Illegal translations = more fans = more people willing to watch television and movie adaptations of JY novels = higher selling price for JY intellectual property. Readers of JY pseudo-books probably already read/bought JY books. I don't think anyone would buy a pseudo-book in lieu of the real deal. As long as the covers are honest and do not put JY's name as the author.

[Demonic Swordsman]

and generally, people know the real ones and the fake ones. Its like the star wars prequels and sequels to the original movies, everyone knows that they're not the real deal

[Ken Cheng]

and generally, people know the real ones and the fake ones. Its like the star wars prequels and sequels to the original movies, everyone knows that they're not the real deal

There's one major difference, however: all the STAR WARS novels, comics, video games, etc., are officially licensed from Lucasfilm and have George Lucas' blessing, although he is not beholden to follow any story ideas that other creators add into his STAR WARS universe. Those faux-Jin Yongs, however, are simply stealing from the real man. Jin Yong did not sell them a license nor do they have his blessing.

[kyss of the sword]

it's a lot harder to sue in hong kong because most of the fake jin yong's started in china and they were, untill recently, rather lax about piracy and copyright. in fact in china, everything was 'unofficially' copyleft. free for everybody. bad for the author.

[Extremer88]

The most famous and popular impersonators would probably be TVB.

[Ken Cheng]

The most famous and popular impersonators would probably be TVB.

TVB bought the licenses, though, and had Jin Yong's blessing going in (not always coming out, but definitely going in).

[Extremer88]

TVB bought the licenses, though, and had Jin Yong's blessing going in (not always coming out, but definitely going in).

But they accidentally changed the storyline without they themselves knowing.

[Ken Cheng]

But they accidentally changed the storyline without they themselves knowing.

It wasn't accidental at all. TVB was fully conscious that it was deviating from the text of the novels. The reasoning, although not accepted by Jin Yong purists, is that TV is a different medium from novels and what works great for the written page doesn't always translate well for the small screen. Hence, adjustments were sometimes made to appeal to the broader TV audience...much of which consisted of people who had not read the novels.