Follow-Up: China’s KFC/McDonald’s Rip-Off & Anime Copyright Violations
October 6th, 2007 by James
Remember the Chinese MFC (McDonalds + KFC) fast food restaurant that a Japanese variety program made fun of last week? NTV’s Real Time News went to the Chinese theme park in question to give us a more in depth look at copyright violations and MFC’s business practices:
Main Points:
- Character parades back in May were full of unauthorized copies of Disney characters, but now there are none. However, all around the park there is unauthorized use of Japanese anime characters.
- When asked if the characters in question are from anime, some Chinese customers say they don’t know.
- A fast food restaurant called MFC combines the Chinese characters for McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, crudely combining the menus of both chains.
- Our brave reporter tries a chicken burger and determines it is less tasty than what he could eat at McDonald’s.
- MFC’s homepage states it was started in America during the 1960s. However, when their reporter calls the company they are told it was founded in China 7 years ago.
- There is something that looks like a Beijing Olympics logo on their menu. However, their phone interview finds that MFC is not an official sponsor of the Olympic games.
The best part of the report? MFC’s spokeswoman responds to their questioning with something along the lines of, “We don’t have any stores in Japan, so what’s your problem?”
If you liked this post, you might want to check our previous posts on the fake Disneyland saga:
- Disneyland in China (May 02, 2007)
- Shijingshan Amusement Park: Now Featuring Fake Zebras! (May 11, 2007)
- More Chinese Amusement Parks Copy Disney! (May 14, 2007)
- Fake Disney in Japan (July 09, 2007)
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Don’t they have their own cartoon characters?I think Pucca is a chinese character.
Pucca is a Korean character.
the burgers are made of cardboard!
If the characters aren’t licensed in China, then isn’t it legal (in China)? Japan has a very large intellectual-property sesational journalism interest. I saw another one about products in Korea that resemble Japanese products. When you have to buy a bottle of Japanese royal milk tea for $2.50 in Korea, and you can get the same drink from a Korean imitation brand fpr $1.00, it doesn’t take a genius to see why the imitation brands are thriving.
Ah China, the land of a thousand copies. Itd be interesting to see what would develop if the Chinese entertainment industry, at least in this respect, was on the same track to unique creation and development that the electronics or auto industry is.
weather its legal or not….its still just a HUGE RIP….oh and the anime might not all be licensed there (yuuyuu hakusho is however) but DISNEY IS licensed there.
Honestly, I read there are copyrights violations in China but never expected them to the level as that infamous Disneyland of Shijinkshan amusement park to this.
Besides copyright violation;pirated Chinese products main attractive point is that it is cheap compared to the original product; but if you look at the safety, product quality you will find them very poor. Unfortunately if people only care about price point, they certainly put their lives and money at risk.
While I have no love for Big Media overcharging and shoving DRM down our throats or extorting compensation money from schoolkids/grannies….
…We must understand this: commie dogs do not respect Intellectual Property, because it is against their fundamental philosophy. Shared property for all.
A commie dog is still a commie dog; wearing business suits instead of Mao suits does not negate this. An open economy does not negate this. Skyscrapers and highways in major cities do not negate this. Hosting the Olympics does not negate this.
In the case of China, it pretends to be ‘capitalist’ or ‘opening up’, but it inevitably shows its true colors from time to time in certain ways such as censorship, repressing its own people and blatant copyright defiance as mentioned in the video. Old habits die hard.