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HK edition / 2020-07 / 10 / Page021

Online novels: Rewriting the future

By Luo Weiteng | HK EDITION | Updated: 2020-07-10 07:57

Burgeoning industry sees conflicts between authors and publishers over royalties and copyrights, complicating the growth of popular literature medium. Luo Weiteng reports from Hong Kong.

Editor's note: This article is the first in a two-part series on online literature.


Each day for nine months, Bi Fang got up at the crack of dawn and spent three hours writing the next chapter of her wuxia novel before making a mad dash off to work. Her novel tells of a young man time-traveling to ancient China on an adventurous journey with a mix of strategies, courage and martial arts to practice the philosophy "Stopping war is a true craft of war."


Uploading the just-completed chapter simply sets an epilogue to Bi's daily task as an online novelist to create a world of make-believe. But it also provides a prologue to a long workday as an accountant in the real world.


Bi is merely one of more than 14 million aspiring writers betting big on the country's booming digital reading industry with nearly 455 million online readers that raked in 28.9 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) in revenue last year, according to data from Statista, a German online statistics portal.


Despite sleep deprivation, mental blocks and an awful lot of problems that most part- or full-time authors have to grapple with, Bi still manages to update her story daily without even a single day off.


"It calls for a great deal of perseverance and willpower. Have you heard of an ancient Chinese story of a person tying his hair to a roof beam and jabbing his side with an awl to stop himself from dozing off while studying?

Whenever I feel I'm written out, that's how I spur myself on to put flesh on the bones of this story - a story that began germinating in my mind more than a decade ago," Bi said.


But there's a fleeting moment when the determined 20-somethings question her decision to enter the gripping world of online literature known as jianghu (literally, "rivers and lakes"), which refers to a fantasy universe of Chinese martial arts, the criminal realm of triad societies, an anarchic condition beyond the reach of government, and the mythical world "out there" in literary works.


Having witnessed the bitter dispute between China's largest online publisher, e-book platform and its author community, Bi laid down her pen and suspended serial updates of her work on May 5 during a joint campaign to boycott the unequal contract that essentially poured cold water on millions of would-be authors' passion for writing.


The contract, rolled out by China Literature - the online publishing arm of internet giant Tencent - included several clauses deemed unfavorable or unfair to writers. The most controversial parts were the removal of the platform's paywall for all content on the site in favor of a free-content business model that relies on advertisements as its primary revenue source; and forcing writers to "unconditionally" yield their copyrights of all works, including translations, adaptations and spinoffs that are derived from the original.


The so-called "May 5 No-Updating Day" strike was the climax of the backlash that put the highflying industry in the teeth of the storm. But all dissenting voices appeared to be silenced soon after China Literature released a newly revised contract in June, although more polarized opinions emerged on both ends of the spectrum about which path individual writers and industry should choose to follow.


Under the new deal, writers are basically entitled to copyright-related personal rights of their works and can decide themselves whether to publish free of charge. While senior, well-known writers look to form an in-depth partnership with the platform, with all terms clearly written in black and white, novices are left with few options - as few as what they could have expected from the previous contract.


No copyright protection


"Ironically, in the alternate universe of jianghu under our pens where the courts of law are dysfunctional, law and order are largely maintained by the various orthodox and righteous sects and heroes who break the law in the name of justice. But in the untamed, unruly jianghu of online literature in the real world, newbies and infamous authors without much bargaining power desperately hope the terrain of the storytellers can be fair, and just, safeguarded by the rule of law," Bi quipped.


After all, the industry itself has run rampant under the shadow of piracy and plagiarism for years. Industry players may argue the latest uproar is just another bump on the road to a disruptive industry that was once neglected by the mainstream of the literary world, but is now at the forefront of promoting Chinese culture overseas.


Qing Ci (not his real name), a self-described seasoned online author who has been writing as a sideline for nearly 12 years, believes the uproar over China Literature is "the latest dispute against Chinese tech giants facing increasing accusations of forcing exploitative rules on its partners by leveraging market monopolies".


"Nothing comes from nothing. Stories of capital nibbling away at creators' cake have repeated themselves over and over again, not only in the realm of online literature, but also in animation and music, where I myself have seen far too many cases," Qing said.


The contract Qing signed with a leading digital reading platform in 2008 required him to hand over the electronic copyright of his works for a period of five years. However, when he renewed the contract after that time, the platform issued a new version of the deal asking him to authorize the copyright of all his works in any form for his lifetime, plus 50 years after his death, which was exactly the copyright protection period under Chinese laws.


"At that time, despite the rigid terms of copyright authorization, the revenue-sharing model between authors and platforms was based on 50 percent of the sales of works, still much better than the current model based on so-called net profit," Qing said.


What makes certain leading platforms "real leaders" is the fact that any revision of the contract initiated by them is not a purely individual act.

Instead, it sets the course for the industry, with other platforms following suit.


"To be sure, those controversial clauses are not peculiar to China Literature. Leafing through existing contracts of other major platforms, you will find they bear much resemblance in terms of copyright authorization, revenue-sharing model and IP adaption," Qing said.


"No wonder defenders of the new contract argue 'it's not so bad'. Most current contracts of this kind stipulate that platforms own the copyright to all works under the original author's pen name. Theoretically, an author could change the pen name and start all over again, despite potentially huge sunk costs."


"Whereas, another major platform known for its female-targeted novels asks for authorization of copyright to all works under the author's real name on the identity card. It looks more like a slavery file signing your life away than a contract, doesn't it?" Qing said with a chuckle.


'Left over from history'


"The new contract may be an industrywide common practice. True enough. But common practice is not necessarily a reasonable practice that creators should take for granted and feel comfortable with."


With platforms such as Qidian, QQ Reading and other brands under its wing, Tencent-backed China Literature openly described the dispute as "an issue left over from history" and "a matter of business rules".


This cuts into the heart of a paradox deeply rooted in the nature of online fantasies as a hybrid of mass literature and commercial phenomenon.
"A free-to-read model, for example, has its roots in an 'internet mindset' that puts too much focus on website traffic. However, it goes without caring much about a delicate balance that online literature has long looked to strike up between its literary merit and commercial value," said Xia Lie, director at the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries of Hangzhou Normal University. He has reservations about the complete removal of a platform's paywall.


From humble beginnings, the industry traces its origins back to the turn of the century when the first batch of grassroots literature enthusiasts began writing for fun and free of charge on internet forums.


The turf war between a free-to-read and paywall models soon broke out, as Zhang Muye (pen name Tian Xia Ba Chang), author of Candle in the Tomb, and Shi Yue (pen name Dang Nian Ming Yue), author of The Narrative History of the Ming Dynasty, voted with their feet to eventually leave Tianya Club - at one time the most popular internet forum in China.


The departure, however, later had Zhang embroiled in a years-long legal tussle over the copyrights to his works.


As a bold response to writers' burning desire to cash in on originality and feed themselves with their pens, Qidian launched the country's first online reading payment program as early as 2003.


The payment program, which Wu Wenhui, founder of Qidian and a pioneer in the online literature world, described as a more robust commercial model in the long run, lays the foundation for the once-fledgling business to grow into a sizeable industry with international heft.


"Writers, platform operators and readers have devoted years of efforts to adapting to each other and gaming the system before a sophisticated, paywall-based ecosystem ultimately came into being. The new contract, in a simple and crude way, deals a blow to the ecosystem, which I believe will do a great deal of harm to online literature going far further," said Shao Yanjun, professor of Chinese language and literature at Peking University.


"From this point of view, the 'May 5 No-Updating Day' strike goes well beyond a contract dispute and safeguarding authors' rights. It has what it takes to become a historic turning point in online literature," Xia said.


The milestone event may well be a shake-up of the established business rules that have set the scene for the industrywide "Wild West" over the past 20 years, said Xia, who is also executive vice-chairman of the Zhejiang Online Writers Association.


With the industry today hunting for the next growth engine, the old set of rules, notably represented by Qidian's business model, is on track to quit the stage, while the new game rules have yet to be set up.


"Industry players, be it writers or platforms, see the dispute as a golden opportunity to reconsider the mutual rights and obligations, the mechanism of benefit distribution and, more importantly, sustainable business model," Xia said.


"As the old patterns are poised to be swept away, the time may also be ripe for the ax to fall on some deeply rooted problems. You can see high hopes are placed on the establishment of new rules that are fairer, or rather, more in their own interest, to rewrite the future.


"There's no making without breaking."


Contact the writer at sophia@chinadailyhk.com

 

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