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SARFT Tightens Grip on Online Videos
The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) issued new regulations for audio-visual content broadcast online and via mobile Internet on March 30. Under the new rules, all films, TV series, cartoons and documentaries transmitted through Internet media must first obtain offline broadcasting licenses. Even if websites purchase copyrights directly from distributors, the rules will make it hard for online video sites to broadcast foreign productions that have not been imported by Chinese theaters or television stations, reports The Beijing News quoting various, large online video sites. An editor at video search engine OpenV said regulations may affect the timeliness of online broadcasts, as TV station approval procedures are fairly slow. Video site Tudou.com said it would not be substantially affected by the regulation in the near future.
In the March 30 regulation, SARFT specifically bans all online audio-visual material that:
1) Opposes the basic principles of the Chinese constitution;
2) Jeopardizes China's unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity;
3) Divulges state secrets, endangers national security or harms national honor and interest;
4) Incites ethnic hatred, racial discrimination, harms national solidarity or encroaches on national customs;
5) Publicizes cults or superstitions;
6) Disrupts social order or stability;
7) Incites minors to break the law or romanticizes violence, obscenity, gambling or terrorism;
8) Humiliates or slanders individuals, or infringes on citizens' privacy or other legal rights;
9) Endangers public morality or cultural traditions
10) Violates other laws or regulations.
Audio-video providers are also required to edit or delete material that maliciously distorts history, historical figures, the police or military; promotes a negative world outlook, or deliberately exaggerates national ignorance or backwardness; promotes religious extremism; describes natural disasters or major accidents in a joking manner; or explicitly displays sexual perversions (including extra-marital affairs and "wife swaps"), extreme violence or the slaughtering of animals.
SARFT has closed a total of 341 audio-video sites for containing "low-brow" content, reports Xinhuanet.com. The Chinese government began issuing online video broadcasting licenses to Internet sites in January 2008.
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