Taiwan-based romance novelist and TV drama producer Chiung Yao (瓊瑤) has accused a scriptwriter for a drama series being aired on China HuNan TV of plagiarizing her work Plum Blossom Scar (梅花烙).
Chiung said in a letter posted on the official microblog of another drama series she produces that she decided to break her silence since her copyright has been severely infringed.
In the public letter addressed to Cai Fuchao (蔡赴朝), director of China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), and Li Jingsheng (李京盛), head of the SARFT’s TV Management Division, Chiung listed multiple things that she said were similar between the China HuNan TV drama series and her Plum Blossom Scar work.
She said she posted the letter because she felt deep pain over the plagiarism, adding that she could have delivered the letter privately, but because the show has already been broadcast she decided to make the letter public to cut the time it would take for the message to reach China.
Chiung said she tried to contact the TV station to demand that the work not be showed, but to no avail.
Chiung, who is a screenwriter and produces TV drama shows, is currently working on a series titled The Legend of the Plum Blossom Scar (梅花烙傳奇).
She said she is annoyed that a Chinese scriptwriter under the pen name Yu Zheng has not only copied, but also ruined her work, adding that what is worse is that it was aired before her show.
In 1989, Chiung was the first TV drama producer in Taiwan to make a TV series in China, she said.
She said she is pleased to see how China’s TV production capacity has grown over the past 25 years, along with increased cross-strait industry exchanges.
However, she could not tolerate the rampant copycat culture in the Chinese industry, she said.
In response, Yu Zheng (于正) said he was stunned and confused by the accusations and said that if there are any similarities between the two dramas, it must be coincidence.
Many of Chiung productions have been made and remade into movies and TV series on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. In the 1990s, TV series adapted from her work were watched in Taiwan and sometimes in China and were very popular.
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