What the New Year Brings

[Randy W]

in the Sixth Tone

 

If you've ever seen a Chinese person clean out a store in another country of stuff to cart home for their 'friends', it may have been a 'daigou'

 

What a New Law Could Mean for China’s ‘Daigou’

Cross-border shoppers have become a multi-billion-dollar industry — but changing regulations could spell the end for the entrepreneurial sellers.

http://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/15/236.jpg

 

Two Chinese ‘daigou’ drag bags through Dongdaemun Market in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 14, 2016. VCG

 

Li is a so-called daigou — which literally translates to “buying on behalf of someone else.” She’s one of an estimated 1 million small-time business operators who shop overseas, then sell the goods over messaging app WeChat or Chinese e-commerce platforms. It’s difficult to estimate the size of the daigou market — the term can refer to anyone from overseas Chinese students looking to make some extra cash, to full-time business entrepreneurs — but a 2015 report by consulting firm Bain & Company said that the daigou market for luxury goods alone was worth between 34 billion to 50 billion yuan ($5.2 billion to $7.6 billion). Last year, an estimated $100 billion of foreign goods was slipped into the Chinese mainland, the world’s largest e-commerce market.

 

. . .

 

On Jan. 1, 2019, China’s new e-commerce law — the first to directly affect daigou — will come into effect. Under the new law, daigou will be required to register as e-commerce operators and acquire licenses in both China and the country where they shop, making their business subject to taxation, finance lawyer Cheng Jiuyu from Zhongwen Law Firm tells Sixth Tone. Any e-commerce platform and seller could be fined 2 million yuan and 500,000 yuan respectively — and possibly face criminal charges.

 

[Randy W]

Not from China - but a big one for the rest of us

 

This is in the NY Times - pay-walled, but you should be able to read it (or similar articles elsewhere) on the 1st

 

New Life for Old Classics, as Their Copyrights Run Out

 

Clockwise from top left: Kahlil Gibran; F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda; Agatha Christie; Jean Toomer; and Thomas Mann.

CreditClockwise from top left: SSPL/Getty Images; Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Penguin; Fred Stein Archive, via Getty Images

 

This coming year marks the first time in two decades that a large body of copyrighted works will lose their protected status — a shift that will have profound consequences for publishers and literary estates, which stand to lose both money and creative control.

But it will also be a boon for readers, who will have more editions to choose from, and for writers and other artists who can create new works based on classic stories without getting hit with an intellectual property lawsuit.

“Books are going to be available in a much wider variety now, and they’re going to be cheaper,” said Imke Reimers, an assistant professor of economics at Northeastern University who has studied the impact of copyright. “Consumers and readers are definitely going to benefit from this.”

The sudden deluge of available works traces back to legislation Congress passed in 1998, which extended copyright protections by 20 years. The law reset the copyright term for works published from 1923 to 1977 — lengthening it from 75 years to 95 years after publication — essentially freezing their protected status. (The law is often referred to by skeptics as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” since it has kept “Steamboat Willie,” the first Disney film featuring Mickey, under copyright until 2024.)

 

[Randy W]

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/662618594196848/

[Randy W]

China’s 2018 in Photos