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党啊，国啊，给我们海外华人留点脸行不？你能留一天出来，啥也不偷行么？
《纽约时报》披露：中国从加拿大偷取i-max技术
《纽约时报》的文章，英文的，不翻译了。也省得看不懂英文的五毛搅和
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/0 ... -in-china.html?_r=0
Imax Faces a Threat in China
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LOS ANGELES — “We’ve got the future under control,” contends OmniCorp, the giant technology corporation in “RoboCop,” a blockbuster remake set for release by Sony Pictures and MGM next month.
But can Imax Corporation, the movie studios’ business ally, say the same about its dealings in China?
Imax, whose huge screens will play a 2-D version of “RoboCop” starting on Feb. 12 in the United States, has a wary eye on the Chinese market, where the same film will open 16 days later, in 3-D, on a competing set of large screens.
That will happen with the support of a powerful government-owned company, the China Film Group, which both controls the import of films to China and oversees the competing large-screen system. The issue is especially sensitive for Imax: Not only could competitors in China cut into its potential market share there, but Imax has charged in several courts that the Chinese system relies on technology that was blatantly stolen from its offices in Canada.
For months, Imax has been quietly trying to settle a bitter dispute with Chinese officials over misappropriated technology, according to people who were briefed on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid further disrupting the talks. The planned Chinese “RoboCop” release threatens to upset a private agreement the two sides have been working toward, these people said.
The dispute underscores the challenges the North American film industry faces as it seeks to expand in China. Hollywood studios have dealt with bureaucratic obstacles on issues like censorship, release dates and delays in the payment of profits. China has also pushed to make its own domestic companies a bigger part of the entertainment industry.
For Imax, the consequences of the fight over Chinese technologies could be considerable.
Failure to contain their use could stunt Imax’s growth in China, while also poisoning the company’s relations with American studios that use Chinese operations to convert their films to 3-D or large-format. It could also cause problems in the United States if, as expected, Chinese companies eventually deploy their products here as a competitor to Imax.
But Imax’s options are complicated by the intertwined nature of China’s film industry. For a Western company to directly challenge the China Film Group is virtually unthinkable. As the gatekeeper of China’s film imports, the group is the arbiter of success and failure in a fast-growing film market that is now No. 2 in the world behind the United States, with about $3.6 billion in annual ticket sales.
Imax’s misappropriation claims are centered on Gary Tsui, a former Imax software engineer who is accused of taking the company’s technology and using it to found or provide engineering help to low-cost Chinese rivals.
Those include China Film Giant Screen, which was co-developed by the China Film Group and will play “RoboCop” on its large-format screens in China, following its conversion to 3-D by a company called Beijing Cubic Pictures Technology. Mr. Tsui has been identified by Imax as the chief engineer for the C.F.G.S. system, which Imax says was developed from its technology, and as having founded Cubic Pictures after supposedly misappropriating Imax’s 2-D to 3-D conversion methods.
In an email last week, Mr. Tsui strongly disputed Imax’s claims that he had stolen its technology. Calling the infringement accusations against him “utterly false,” he said, “I’m a former Imax employee being scapegoated when the company chooses not to face competitive environment, ever-changing technology, and the dislikes of market monopoly and itself.”
Separately, a lawyer for the China Film Group said that the China Film Giant Screen venture “is not involved in the matter of technology infringement” described in several Imax court filings. He said the matter should be left for courts to resolve.
The Imax dispute with Mr. Tsui and others is still playing out in courts here, in China, and in Canada. In Ontario, Imax won an injunction ordering Mr. Tsui to stop competing with Imax pending trial, and the court later ordered Mr. Tsui detained — though he has remained free, and apparently outside of Canada — for failing to comply with its orders.
In August, Imax filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court against GDC Technology, a digital information display company based in Burbank, Calif., that is associated with a Hong Kong-based parent. The Burbank company, which has been planning a public offering in the United States, is accused by Imax of selling the C.F.G.S. system that Imax says is based on technology stolen by Mr. Tsui.
According to court documents, settlement talks are underway in that suit. GDC has not formally responded to the accusations. But Robert N. Schwartz, a lawyer for the company, last week denied that GDC was using stolen technology.
In a statement, an Imax representative said the company would continue to pursue Mr. Tsui, and might consider “further actions” against others connected to its misappropriated trade secrets. But the company also acknowledged that it had been working toward an accommodation with the Chinese.
“We have had informal discussions with representatives of China Film Group and government officials and believe they understand our concerns,” the statement said.
People briefed on the talks said Chinese officials were eager to resolve the dispute, and had asked Imax officials not to discuss it publicly while terms were being worked out. A possible resolution, those people said, might involve an agreement not to sell the Chinese giant-screen systems in the United States.
Still, Imax was jolted by the news that Sony and MGM were using Mr. Tsui’s companies to sell “RoboCop” in China, where until recently the giant-screen business had largely been an Imax preserve.
As of Sept. 30, when it last reported financial results, Imax said that approximately 20 percent of its 785 theaters were in China, where moviegoers show a strong appetite for large-screen showings. The theater count there had expanded by 37 percent, to 152, in just one year.
According to Imax court filings in the United States, Mr. Tsui, who was also known as Xiaoyu Cui, worked as a software engineer for Imax in Mississauga, Ontario from 1999 until 2009. That year, he gave notice of intent to quit, but was immediately fired after it was learned that he had started Jiangsu Sunway Digital, a company that was bidding for giant-screen business in China at a price cheaper than that offered by Imax. According to Imax, a search of Mr. Tsui’s computer revealed his “rampant use” of its trade secrets in starting Sunway, which Imax said eventually “morphed” into C.F.G.S.
When C.F.G.S. announced its giant-screen products at the Cannes film festival in 2012, Film Business Asia described it as an attempt to “break the Imax big-screen monopoly.” The systems, which were deployed in roughly 50 Chinese theaters by the end of last year, are cheaper than Imax systems, and allow for lower ticket prices.
How widely the C.F.G.S. system has been used for American studio imports — and whether the China Film Group specifically required that a Chinese company be used as a condition of admitting “RoboCop” to China — remains unclear.
One Chinese executive briefed on the film said Sony, which has taken the lead in distributing “RoboCop” abroad, was guided only by confidence in Beijing Cubic, and by the prospect of extra ticket sales, in undertaking the conversion. That executive and others associated with the movie said they were unaware of the Imax dispute with Mr. Tsui and his associated companies.
Representatives of Sony and MGM declined to discuss details of the Chinese release of “RoboCop.” |
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发表于 2014-2-4 22:40:01
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