Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Lawbringer: Dispelling the panda myths
by Mathew McCurley 
Oct 28th 2011 at 4:00PM
With the announcement of Mists of Pandaria and the inclusion of the Pandaren race in World of Warcraft, the most-asked question that I received was "How is this possible with the laws in China against killing pandas in video games?" The second most-asked question was "How is this possible when Kung Fu Panda will just sue Blizzard?" After I got over the initial hilarity of imagining the actual Jack Black-voiced Kung Fu Panda taking a dude to court, I realized that the myths about China's involvement with pandas in games, as well as what constitutes a real cause of action in terms of copying characters, are finally issues at the forefront of WoW topics.
The Lawbringer is all about pandas today. You might be sick of them, you might love them, or heck, you might be on the panda fence. I can promise you that even if you aren't a Pandaren fan, you just might learn a little something or two from today's all-panda fun. Sit back, relax, get all Zen-like, and let's see what the Pandaren have to offer us.
Why not sooner?
There are a lot of myths out there about why Blizzard never introduced the Pandaren race earlier than now. The Pandaren has been and still was one of the most requested races by players to be added to the game. Their Blizzard origins come from artist Samwise Didier, who originally used his Pandaren creations on greeting cards and personal drawings for his family. The Pandaren made their way into Warcraft III on Illidan's glaives as well as through Pandaren hero Chen Stormstout, friend of Rexxar during the Orc campaign in The Frozen Throne. Pandaren have also been the stewards of the Blizzard April fool's jokes in years past, so many people considered them a joke, all things considered.
One of those prevailing myths about why Pandaren haven't been fully realized in game sooner was that the Chinese governmental body that approves games for distribution, the Ministry of Culture, had some sort of rule or law that the panda should not be depicted in media being hurt or killed. This is just not true. In fact, there really isn't any type of law like that. There are some crazy laws on the books with regards to pandas, like the millions of dollars in fees zoos have to pay to keep pandas out of China, but not anything with regards to media. In fact, there are a bunch of Chinese-made games with Asian-inspired expansion packs, races, and entire MMOs based around panda people.
So why did China have a problem with Pandaren?
The root of the Pandaren problem wasn't in a law or regulation. Many have speculated that Chinese aversion to the original Pandaren drawings by Samwise had to do with the Pandaren being characterized as samurai in traditional samurai clothing. The panda is inherently Chinese, but the samurai armor and styles that Samwise had drawn them in had the trappings of Japanese culture. The Chinese and Japanese have a long, storied, and problematic history that makes this type of cross-culture expression somewhat looked down upon.
After a while, the Pandaren characters lost their samurai warrior clothing and instead donned the traditional black and white Chinese linen garb and conical straw hat. This, presumably, made the Pandaren more palatable for the Chinese and paved the way for the Pandaren we see today. If you've ever wanted a more clear-cut, teachable moment in video game translation and localization, this is it.
So no, the Chinese authorities and ministry of culture do not have a law on the books banning panda people from getting popped with some magic spells or beaten down in PVP. WoW's troubles in China with releasing expansions, content, or other related products are merely political in nature, having to do with their relationship to the companies that they have contracted with for distribution and development. The ministry of culture does have laws that forbid foreign companies from engaging in joint partnerships, and the NetEase/the9 debacle surrounding the release of Wrath of the Lich King was definitely attributable to "laws on the books." Pandaren? Nope.
The other email I got in droves (and I wish I were using this word in an inflated sense, hyperbolically, if you will) was what Kung Fu Panda thinks of all of this. Well, for one, Kung Fu Panda doesn't think anything about this. He's off saving the world from Ian McShane. He did the voice of the villain in that movie, right? I love Ian McShane.
No, if anyone would be upset, it would be Dreamworks Animation, the company that produced the film, as well as its distribution partner Paramount. The real question is whether or not enough of Mists of Pandaria looks too much like Kung Fu Panda for there to be a cause of action against Blizzard for ripping off Dreamworks' film. There are a few factors to consider:
- Is the work in the same medium?
- Could a consumer get confused as to which brand is being represented?
- Can you even own the concept of a kung-fu-fighting, anthropomorphic panda man?
Think about it this way: I can copyright specific works of fiction and certain specific aspects of that story that go along with the whole, but general concepts and story tropes are not protectable. If I wrote a story about two star-crossed lovers who can't be with each other because of familial tensions and fighting, the corpse of Shakespeare isn't going to take me to court. Similarly, if I wrote a book about zombies, author Max Brooks won't have anything to sue me over. However, if I wrote a book about a roving reporter during the zombie war, there might be something there, à la World War Z (which you should all read). Remember when The DaVinci Code hit it big and authors from all around the world came out of the woodwork to say that they already came up with the idea of a super-smart symbologist who tracks down the lost heirs of Jesus Christ? I actually worked on one of these cases, and it was truly an experience.
Copyright lawsuits come about when two pieces of art or media are too similar to a consumer such that the copies could be mistaken for the original or as a derivative work of the original. Let's stay with the Kung Fu Panda example. If you're a Netflix Instant Watch subscriber, you've most likely seen a movie called Chop Kick Panda show up in one of your queues. Chop Kick Panda is about as rip-off-y as you get in terms of story, character design, and tone. The characters in each film are practically the same. Seriously, go watch the first three minutes of Chop Kick Panda and tell me someone didn't watch Kung Fu Panda and just happen to make their own movie.
Is that a comprehensive look at the copyright issues dealing with story tropes? Nah. Is it enough for this particular topic? It sure is. Mists of Pandaria and Kung Fu Panda can live in harmony and peace, together in a world where pandas doing martial arts don't infringe on each other. Balance in all things, etc.
See you guys next week.
This column is for entertainment only; if you need legal advice, contact a lawyer. For comments or general questions about law or for The Lawbringer, contact Mat at mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Lawbringer, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 7)
loop_not_defined Oct 28th 2011 4:33PM
I'm wondering if there might be some degree of co-opting cultures here. Coming from some white American guy with (I'm assuming) little experience in either culture doesn't help.
Mathew McCurley Oct 28th 2011 4:40PM
@MattKrotzer Leave Los Eagletarians alone.
loop_not_defined Oct 28th 2011 4:41PM
Being some white American guy with little experience in...well, any culture...co-opting isn't really my strong suit.
Luotian Oct 28th 2011 4:42PM
I think that's...extremely simplistic. By the American standard and what we believe are our rights, then yes. To the Chinese, and this conflict of land/religion/culture that has pre-dates most of where my Asian History text books start...
Lets see if I can come up with a better example for you. Lets say you're French just after Henry V came down and slaughtered a lot of your country most spectacularly. And that guy on the corner starts trying to sell you a shield that has Henry V's coat of arms painted over the Fluer De Lies.
Its a bit more like that.
Ata Oct 28th 2011 4:46PM
It's a really, -really- really deep seeded dislike between the two nations. Like, goes back a -really freakin long time- dislike between the two nations. It's racisim at it's core, but it's got countless examples of one country treating the other like not people when they war with each other up to and including the 'rape of Nanking' in WWII (That Japan only just recently apologized for, sorta kinda), and back to the Chinese doing not so nice things to Japan when it decided to reach out and bap them back when they were united under one Emperor. Neither nation likes each other. None of the major nations there like each other; Korea, Vietnam, Japan, China, Thailand...major tensions culturally between all of them.
It's honestly, honestly better for Blizzard to just kind of smile and nod and not touch it with a ten foot pole and change it the way they have than to try to be some magical entertainment from the West that unites the Asian peoples under the common banner of entertainment! Im being a bit sarcastic there, but I think you can get what I mean.
Puntable Oct 28th 2011 4:47PM
Mexico never went to war with the USA. The Japanese committed some horrible atrocities against the Chinese in WWII. It might be a better analogy to dress the bald eagle in a Nazi uniform.
But actually I do agree with Cutaia. People are too easily offended.
veil Oct 28th 2011 4:49PM
i think it's more akin to say...back in the 80's if someone decided to dress up the bald eagle in a russian outfit. along those lines. it's not so much the cross-cultural mashup they have an issue with as it is a cross-cultural mashup of two cultures that hate each other. there's no love lost between chinese and japanese. well...specifically mainland chinese. those from hong kong and taiwan couldn't give a shit (relatively). and honestly, as a chinese (taiwanese actually), i can see their perspective. the panda is indelibly a chinese icon. you see a panda and you think of chinese culture. it'd be a bit of a crotchpunch to see your icon dressed in a culture you have no love for.
Daedalus Oct 28th 2011 4:49PM
Your analogy's a bit off; it'd be more like a bald eagle in an Al Queda t-shirt.
If Chinese people have a problem with Japan, it's unfortunate, but it's kind of understandable. If you have to ask why, just search wikipedia for "Rape of Nanking." (provided you don't mind a crippling bout of depression, that is...)
Add to that that in the minds of some Chinese people, the war crimes have never really been apologized for, and that the wound still festers thanks to things like Japanese politicians downplaying or outright denying the incidents as recently as the 1990's.
There are still people alive in China today who, under the Japanese, experienced horrors as bad as anything the Nazis ever dreamed up. So it's not just pointless racism that would cause outrage; there's some really bad blood there.
Eyhk Oct 28th 2011 4:53PM
Think of it as this. Somebody draws up Moses with the ten commandments and then dresses him up in Nazi gear. Maybe not as extreme, but close enough.
Revynn Oct 28th 2011 4:55PM
@Cutaia - At the same time, Blizzard has an obligation to respect the various cultures of its international customers. Regardless of what the Chinese and Japanese think of each other, it would be pretty dicked up for them to present Samurai Pandas and say "Eh, Japanese or Chinese, what's the difference? All those Asians look the same anyway."
While their cooperation in the matter is an indirect form of approval, it's also not their job to be making political statements or calling cultural differences to question. Leave that for the politicians and activists.
Dementron Oct 28th 2011 4:57PM
Yeah, the bad blood between the countries has been there for a long time. The past couple hundred years have been especially bad, considering how many times Japan tried to take over China.
World War II was especially horrible. More than just Nanking. There were hundreds of toxic gas attacks and multiple incidents of airdropping bubonic-plague-infested fleas on cities, causing epidemics. 20-35 million Chinese casualties vs about 2 million for the Japanese. And the Japanese still try to pretend nothing happened.
I'd be a little bitter too.
Ata Oct 28th 2011 5:01PM
@Puntable
Uh, technically yes Mexico did war with the US. After we grabbed Texas from them, the US invaded New Mexico and the California Republic and actually occupied Mexico City and forced them to give us the land at it's current border where it is. Where the US bought Louisiana Territory from France and negotiated a nice simple line up north with the British, we went to freakin war with Mexico to get the Southwestern states.
The whole 'Remember the Alamo!' thing was from when Texas wanted to be it's own state and was trying to succeed from -Mexico- and ended up in US hands.
You made me kind of want to cry. ;.; No one knows history anymore...
Daedalus Oct 28th 2011 5:01PM
@Dementron:
Exactly. To me, racism is an irrational hatred of a group of people because of their race or national origin. On the other hand, hating the country that performed horrible, torturous medical experiments on your grandmother? Maybe not so irrational.
(cutaia) Oct 28th 2011 5:01PM
"I think that's...extremely simplistic."
Oh, almost certainly. I'm, by no means, an expert in these cultural relations. I only know that on the surface it seemed odd to me. I was hoping someone would come along and explain things a bit more for me. Which leads me to...
"If Chinese people have a problem with Japan, it's unfortunate, but it's kind of understandable. If you have to ask why, just search wikipedia for "Rape of Nanking." (provided you don't mind a crippling bout of depression, that is...)"
Holy crap. Bout of depression and the desire to vomit, eh? Not to sound ignorant of history, but this is one of those things I definitely didn't know about.
"The Japanese committed some horrible atrocities against the Chinese in WWII. It might be a better analogy to dress the bald eagle in a Nazi uniform."
Sure, but I hate Nazis...not Germans. :(
"It's honestly, honestly better for Blizzard to just kind of smile and nod and not touch it with a ten foot pole"
And you're almost certainly right. It's just sad to me that we live in a world where such problems exist.
Hey, thanks for the replies, all. Definitely learned some things. I'm still sad that it all comes down to hate, though, even if it is "understandable." :(
icepyro Oct 28th 2011 5:02PM
While I kind of understand your point, there is a point in national pride and mistaking cultural references. As a long time fan of both Chinese and Japanese cultures, calling MoP Asian seems a bit broad to me since it's mainly Chinese and maybe some southeastern Asian, while Night Elves got Japanese (so wow already has Asian)
Basically I think the Chinese just want what Dreamworks wants: people not to be confused on their cultural references and origins. Pandas are Chinese. Samurai are not. There's already more than enough people who don't know the difference between Chinese and Japanese culture. I've even already heard one person say they thought the Night Elves seemed more Chinese than the Pandaren. I could totally see them disliking Pandaren Samurai as that muddies the waters regardless of personal racism behind it. I bet they would be just as upset if the Panda was drawn Hindu.
Eyhk Oct 28th 2011 5:03PM
Something similar happened awhile ago, when a Japanese restaurant was opened with the name Geisha, and then specifically hired Korean waitresses and tried to dress them in kimonos. Guess what the word 'geisha' means and what the Japanese did to many Korean women when Japan invaded Korea during WWII. Many of those women are still alive. Many horrible things happened back then that have not been forgotten, although many of us are too young to really know or understand. That's why we study history.
Saeadame Oct 28th 2011 5:06PM
Honestly, China takes it a little far, considering how long ago most of the objectionable stuff happened, but Japan has NEVER apologised for their war atrocities, and didn't really have to pay anything to the the populations they hurt, they've even removed most mention of large incidents like the Nanjing Massacre (known as the "Nanjing Incident" in Japanese textbooks, if it's mentioned at all) and Korean comfort women from their textbooks so most Japanese people today don't know about them at all. When the Japanese talk about WWII, pretty much all they talk about is the atomic bombings (which yes, were horrible) and MAYBE Peral Harbour, if you bring it up. Try to get them to acknowledge that they might have maybe possibly raped, tortured, and killed hundreds of thousands of people in East and South-East Asia. Total denial, unless they are particularly open-minded and well educated. Former soldiers who have come forward with their own accounts of atrocities they themselves did are harassed for "lying." Futhermore, Japan (it was sanctioned by the government, so I can say "Japan") enshrined convicted and executed war criminals as deities at the famous Yasukuni Shrine, and many government figures, including most Prime Ministers go there to honour the war dead. Whether they are actually honouring the war criminals, rather than just soldiers who died at war in general, is debatable, but they could make their relationship with China and Korea so much better by simply saying "yes, this happened, it was terrible and we are not those people that did those things, but we're sorry that it happened" and not having public figures visit that shrine.
I mean, it was only in like 2006 (exact year ???) that Japan allowed there to be a memorial to the Koreans who died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, because before that they wouldn't even acknowledge that there had been Korean slave workers in Japan period.
Yes, part of it is racism, but it's not like Japan is doing everything they can to make their relationship with China better, in fact they have perpetually made it worse over the years.
Sorry if it seems a little harsh, I don't particularly approve of China either (you probably don't even want to hear my rant on all the shit in China), but East Asia is my area of study, and I feel compelled to play devil's advocate in this case.
Candina@WH Oct 28th 2011 5:11PM
Cutaia - it is not racism. To reduce it to racism is to belittle the cause.
Most Americans agree that Nazi Germany was as close to 'pure' evil as it is possible to be. But we don't hate the modern Germans. Why? Because Germany was conquered. And the re-born German state denounced the crimes the Nazi's committed, even going so far as to make the pledge 'Nie Wieder' (Never Again) part of their national psyche.
The Japanese militarists were deposed. But Japan was never conquered in the same way. The Japanese government has never made formal apologies or reparations for war crimes committed under the Rising Sun flag, and have even denied that most of the atrocities ever happened [as pointed out earlier].
These are the most recent of conflicts between the two peoples. The conflict goes back centuries.
Seeing their national, spiritual animal dressed as a Japanese Samurai (a symbol of oppression to them) has to be similar to the reaction a christian has to a satanic ritual that defiles a cross. Yes, it is that sort of reaction.
roark.notaninja Oct 28th 2011 5:14PM
The other aspect to the position that the Chinese didn't want their equivalent of a national symbol to be mixing with Japanese culture could be more benign. In a world where Asian is a blanket term, it's very easy to say "Chinese, Japanese, whatever."
However, by protecting the fact that pandas have nothing to do with Japan, the Chinese are allowing distinction to be made between the two ethnic groups.
This isn't to say that racism or racial distrust, or outright bigotry doesn't play a role in the decision of the Chinese to raise a stink about pandas in samurai garb, but I feel the issue is more than this one-sided approach — even if it is to keep pandas from being associated with "those people" there is still a cultural acknowledgment of a difference between the Chinese and the Japanese.
Ugh, wordy comment is wordy.
kaminari Oct 28th 2011 5:20PM
I guess china is still sore from the stuff japan did in WW2, so the bald eagle would have to in clothes or a setting "adversarial" to the U.S. to make a good comparison.