Month: June 2014

“S Korea Helps with Copyright Protection”

Interesting new step in the Asia Art Law arena.**DB

“S Korea Helps with Copyright Protection”

via “VietnamNet“

Vietnamese and South Korean agencies have signed a memorandum of understanding under which the latter will provide technical know-how for copyright protection in the music industry.

Under the MoU signed during a seminar held on Friday in Ha Noi, the Korean side will show their Vietnamese counterparts how to control the number of times a song can be downloaded from a website. Based on this, the Viet Nam Centre for Protection of Music Copyright (VNCPMC) can calculate and collect royalty for composers.

Yu Byong-han, chairman of the Korea Copyright Commission, said Korean experts are willing to share their experience and technology with Vietnamese managers.

“We update continuously the technology for copyright protection and digital forensic investigation,” Yu said.

“Korea is not rich in natural resources. That’s why we value the human resources. For us, each creative work is a treasure.

“We try our best to protect the rights for creators and encourage them to work,” Yu added.

The Viet Nam and South Korea Copyright Seminar drew the participation of numerous Vietnamese and South Korean experts who spoke on different issues relating to copyright, especially in the context of cultural exchanges between the two countries.

The protection of copyrights and related rights is not taken very seriously in Viet Nam yet, said VNCPMC director Pho Duc Phuong.

“Many artistes have complained that their works are used without their permission and they don’t receive any royalty from such use,” he said.

Viet Nam faces several obstacles in collecting royalty and managing copyrights, Phuong said, adding one of them was the difficulty in controlling the download of songs from music websites.

Phuong said that after 12 years since its inception, his agency had paid composers a royalty of US$8 million in total, while a counterpart organisation in the US collected $3 billion in just one year.

Vu Ngoc Hoan, director of the Copyright Office of Viet Nam (COV), stressed the importance of copyright protection in the global integration process.

“Artistes will maintain their creativity and keep their minds on work as long as they know that they are respected and their rights are protected,” Hoan said.”

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Chinese Artist: Wang Bu

“Vases with Bird-and-Flower Painting” by Wang Bu (1898–1968)

Artist

Wang Bu was a 20th Century Chinese artist that specialized in working with Ceramics. He was officially trained in the blue and white art, working under an expert tutor for several years. Wang Bu’s first significant work came when popular ceramic artist, Wu Aisheng, hired him to design porcelain items in the style so popular during the Ming and Qing periods. He would continue working with porcelain and ceramics for the rest of his life, preferring to decorate them in the blue and white coloring his father and mentor had loved.

Wang Bu made two great contributions to the art field. First, He created the innovative method of using Chinese brush drawing to add the blue and white colors onto his ceramics and porcelain works ~ a technique that many other artists would soon pick up. Second, he invented a “coloring pigment” by using the Chinese ink painting technique. This pigment helped the colors used on ceramics to stay bright and colorful, as opposed to dulling and spotting as it dried.

He briefly abandoned the blue and white style during the tumultuous period of WWII an the Anti-Japanese War. However, he would later return to his roots, and eventually earned the title “King of Blue and White. In the sixty years that he worked, he designed millions of works, many of which are still famous today.

Influences

His father, Xiuquing, who was an expert in blue and white painting.
Xu Yousheng, his teacheer and another expert artist that worked with blue and white painting.
Ming and Qing Dynasty ceramic artists.

Stylistic Characteristics

Blue and White Coloring ~ particularly over-glazed with colors underneath or paste on paste.
Ceramics and Porcelain canvases.
Use of Chinese brush drawing or ink painting.
Bright, smooth coloring.
He seems to have like flowers, animals, and natural subjects.
His signature in his later years was often “the old man Taoqing.”

Coming Exhibition: A Parallel Tale ~ Taipei in 80s X Hong Kong in 90s

“A Parallel Tale ~ Taipei in 80s X Hong Kong in 90s”

Who:

Comic Home Base
Hong Kong Arts Centre
Dala Publishing Company

When: June 25, 2014 – Aug. 31, 2014 (Sat.-Sun 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.)

Where:

Comic Home Base
North Campus Drive
Provo, Utah 84602

How Much: Free!

More Information: Here and Here.

Participating Hong Kong Comics Artist: Fung Chi-ming, Ho Ka-fai, Seeman Ho, Li Chi-tak, Justin Wong
Participating Taipei Comics Artist: 61Chi, Sean Chuang, Amin Lee, Push Comic (Ah Tui), Ahn Zhe (Tu Tse-Wei)

Comics artists from Hong Kong and Taipei set out on a fascinating time-travel trip with their drawing pens, taking a stroll down the memory lane to trace the footprints they left in the two cities in the 80s and 90s. Stories and scenes that pop up in the artists’ minds as they revisit the old times are transformed into pages of original comics – some light-hearted and some thought-provoking – to illuminate their memories of the people and things from a few decades ago, and even the social and cultural phenomena at that time.

Featuring 10 comics artists and 10 comics works loaded with nostalgia, the exhibition takes everyone to travel backward in time, returning to the Hong Kong and Taiwan in the sweet, old past. The exhibition was held in Taiwan as one of the programmes of the “Hong Kong Week 2013@Taipei” and received overwhelming response. The exhibition will be shown in Hong Kong in this summer. In addition to the exhibition, there are also a series of side events aiming to offer the general public valuable insight into the comics and publishing industry both in the past and at present, as well as the startling artistic ability and creative talent of the artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Side Events

– 1+1 Live Drawing Demonstration

– Sharing Session: I Am a Comics Artist/ Publisher!

“Boats at Burano”

“Boats at Burano” by Kandy Cross

This work, created by an American artist and up for sale, is based upon the painted buildings in Burano, Italy.

“Is Culture at Risk in Myanmar?”

by Jeffrey Brown via “PBS.org“

“In the immigration line at Yangon airport as I waited to present my passport the radio played — can it be? — “Red River Valley,” sung by a woman in Burmese. On the way into the city I see the driver take his seat on the right hand side — British style — as I’d expected. But then I realize we are driving on the right hand side–American style. Huh? Apparently, a ruling general once visited the U.S. and thereafter decreed that the Myanmar’s people should drive on the right hand side as well. But steering wheels stayed as they were. I am not looking forward to being in a hurry and watching — or perhaps closing my eyes — as a driver attempts to pass on the left, without being able to see until it’s rather (too?) late.

We are here to report on a country opening up to the world, politically, economically and culturally. A ruthless military dictatorship clamped down on all opposition, prohibited free expression and kept the country closed off and shrouded in a North Korean-like secrecy for more than five decades. That has begun to change in the last five years or so, dramatically in the last two. It’s tentative, uncertain — and some people we talk with are quick to doubt how far it will go — but it can be seen even in little ways and even in the first days here: The magazine in my hotel room features an article by the editor on how the ‘country is living a lie’ believing that real political reform will come from the ruling military. Just a few years ago that could not have been published. In a small shop I see figurines of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner long held under house arrest. On the streets there’s a great deal of construction. Not the ‘crane on every corner’ I saw years ago in Shanghai as it began its incredible transformation. But a beginning — money clearly flowing in, new office buildings (and soaring rents), some ‘hip’ hotels and restaurants, a city being reshaped. Modern buildings sitting next to grand but dilapidated older ones. . . .”