As some of our readers noticed, the Confucius Institute has apparently taken our content off their website. The situation resolved itself just as mysteriously as it began. Without any notice or clarification from the Institute the articles which they took from China Expat suddenly disappeared [update: The Confucius Institute has emailed to send an apology, which we accepted. Text is at the bottom of the post]. In fact, after the took down our articles, it appears they went a step further removing the entire section, which appeared to be entirely copyrighted material from other sites. Kudos to them for making the right decision.

What started out as a routine Google search a few days ago ended up with the startling realization that someone was using our material wholesale. Ultimately this led to a surprising amount of media attention, becoming an example of lax attention to IP in China. We anticipated blogs focusing on local or legal issues like China Law Blog, IP Dragon, and Peking Duck might pick up the story, but we had not expected MSNBC or Business Week would as well. That’s because, as many people have pointed out, it is not that surprising to find content ‘borrowed’ on Chinese sites. So what made this story different enough to attract attention?

There are a few factors that I think caught people’s notice. First, small scale plagiarism is common here, and often blatant. However it is unusual to see dozens and dozens of stories taken from the same source in their entirety without credit. We ourselves have found verbatim reproductions of our listings and articles on other sites, but have chosen not take any action in those cases. We reasoned that there is always a risk from unscrupulous people out there, and it is not worth a fight for one or two articles. Clearly this situation is different.

The second factor is that the Confucius Institute is a widely respected, highly international organization, and is expected to be above such pettiness. In fairness, the articles went down in three days, which is relatively quick all things considered. There is a good possibility they were posted by a young person fresh out of college who did not realize the implications of their actions. Had the Institute contacted us to clarify I would be able to give you a fuller explanation, but instead I have to surmise. [update: see explanation at bottom of post]

Third, we decided to fight back. When Bruce Einhorn from Business Week called he mentioned that their content gets stolen frequently and they rarely do anything. Several people alleged to me that they have even seen major sites like the China Daily reproducing copyrighted material, although I have no confirmatin. Again, were it not for the sheer volume of content and seemingly complete contempt for authorship rights we probably would not have fought.

Sitting down we tried to think about the best way to handle the dilemma. In the US one would probably sue. However, going through lawyers looked about as useful as beating our heads against a wall. Besides, we were always aware it was possible some obscure loophole could allow them to ‘legally’ reproduce our material without consent (more on this below).

In the end we decided that contacting them and creating an outcry would be the most effective means of getting the material taken down. Furthermore, with plagiarism being a widespread problem here, we hoped this would stop someone from lifting articles in the future (suffice to say we probably did not meet this goal). In retrospect I strongly believe we handled it more effectively than we could have through other channels. Perhaps the two emails we sent them did the trick on their own, but it is more likely that the calls from major western media outlets got them moving.

During this process China Expat also learned some interesting and bizarre things about Chinese copyright laws. There may have actually been a (weak) legal argument that could have given them partial cover. More than one lawyer who voiced an opinion pointed out that organizations can re-print copyrighted material in China if it is for ‘educational purposes’ and full credit is given. I guess ‘educational purposes’ can be defined many different ways, but we were certainly not given any credit. (To make this point clearer, a non-profit, which the Confucius Institute is nominally, albeit with deep government pockets, could theoretically re-print anything they wanted as long as they gave some form of credit, however minor.)

Rather than getting into an argument of legal minutia, we opted to bring the issue out into the public and let the chips fall where they may. The Institute’s audience is comprised of westerners interested in Chinese culture (as is China Expat’s, hence the usefulness of our material). Given this readership, whatever the legal justification for taking the material, there was no was that they would win the argument on ethical grounds, and ultimately they seemed to have realized this.

One reader commented that in the internet age it is easy to get revenge. Well, China Expat has no interest in revenge, but we are pleased that the situation has been resolved. We hold no grudges and would be happy to give the Institute a chance to explain what happened. If they would like we can give them a platform on our site to do so. After all, it was Confucius who taught us, “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”

*****

Apology from The Confucius Institute:

Dear Mr. Gartner

We are extremely sorry for our infelicitous act. We offer you a frank apology for the use of your articles without your permission. We have now removed all of the articles that you cited from our webpage.

The Confucius Institute Online website is still in its testing phase. At this stage of its development we regret any mistakes that we have made.

We have disciplined all staff involved with the mistakenly used content. The person who was primarily responsible for mistakenly using your articles is no longer working with us.

At another date we would like to talk about the possibility of establishing a partnership. We are interested in using your well written articles concerning China.

Please accept our sincere apologies.

Sincerely

Confucius Institute online *****

On Monday we will finish up our discussion on the craziness of expats in China that we started earlier this week.

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