The results of the first round of reviews this year came out last week. SARFT announced that 80% of the submissions had been approved, and 63% of these dealt with modern subject matter. Various news reports have also noted that the other series tend to treat their subject matter in a more head-on matter - reproducing their source material faithfully rather than playing around with it.
Data concerning this round is contained in a summary chart (translated here), and a longer document that provides project outlines and SARFT comments*. Shows are categorized according to subject matter and place of origin.
Reasons for denying certification fall into five categories (roughly in order from most to least common):
Even approved projects are sometimes subject to additional requirements. A number of series deemed "important historical subjects" were instructed to apply for additional review. Others were asked to change their titles, in some cases because of duplication, and in others simply because something about the original title rubbed SARFT the wrong way. A small taste: Magical Love (神奇的爱), a story about apprentice magicians, Brother Debtor, Sister Debtor (负哥负姐), about the new crop of indebted college grads, Born in the 70s (生于70年代), A Chinese Red Guard （中国红卫兵), Young Women of a Rich Family (豪门里的少奶奶), about the divergent fates of the daughters of a rich household in wartime China, and Zhongnanhai (中南海), about the construction of China's most famous gated community.
A few additional observations:
The big news the headlines are trumpeting is a new 60-episode adaptation of Dream of the Red Mansions, to begin shooting in November. I myself am looking forward to watching a series based on The Travels of Laocan, to air in February of next year. Will the producers stay faithful to the original work when they film the later, more supernaturally-inclined chapters?
Note: Let me digress a bit here to complain about the certifiably insane document preparers at SARFT. Rather than using tables, these documents have every bit of text positioned absolutely against a series of background grid images - this includes individually-positioned digits in the numbers. The detailed report loads 9.8 megs of jpgs into a 1.6 meg HTML document. Oh yes, and there are typos. Sure, anyone can now print out properly-formatted pages from their browser, but viewing the larger file is nigh on impossible. The translation provided here merely swaps in English text for Chinese and corrects erroneous figures; no formatting changes were attempted apart from image compression.
美国商务部长古铁雷斯，现在应该已经到了北京，他说，他这次到中国，知识产权问题是重要议题，因为他认为，要改变中美之间的贸易逆差的问题，中国必须在保护知识产权的问题上做得更多。
中国的盗版问题严不严重，如果看看大家的身边的情形，似乎很难说服别人相信政府做了很多，正如一个德国记者在今天的记者会上问政府官员，如果他从记者会的现场走出去，五分钟之内就可以买到翻版碟，政府如何解释。这倒是存在的事实，虽然政府一再打击，包括捣毁翻版光碟制造线，但是这个市场实在太大，利润不是一倍两倍，所以还是不断的有人愿意以身试法。
正如我请教一名法律学者，内地为什麽不像香港，不单单是打击制造者，对于购买者和使用这也视为犯法呢？因为在香港，如果购买或者使用翻版软件，办公室里面的电脑如果不是每一台使用一套正版软件，都算是犯法。专家这样回答我，一个法律，定的再严厉，在详尽，但是在执行上存在困难，那末，这样的法律，可能比不定还要糟糕。因为这会给人们设立一个很坏的榜样，让人们误以为，有法可以不依。中国内地目前的情况就是这样，不管是执法的力量，还是社会道德的认识程度，都还不适合用这样的方式。
尽管如此，中国的刑法对于侵犯知识产权的量刑可能在世界上都是最严厉的，最高要入狱七年。但是专家指出，在执法力度上，确实存在问题，这里面，资源是最大的问题，比如执法人员的数量，以及法官本身对于知识产权问题的认识，很多法官担心判错，宁愿不判。
专家说，知识产权问题应该依靠司法程序来解决，美国对于中国不满，应该是由美国公司透过司法程序来控告中国公司，而不是透过对政府施压，要求政府透过行政手段来处理，当然中国政府现在已经按照他们的要求用行政手段来做了。事实上，世贸组织的仲裁，说到底也是司法手段的体现。只是有意思的是，到现在为止，并没有美国公司采取法律手段，来控告侵犯它的产品的中国公司。
其实有一点很好笑，还记得二年前美国的前商务部长到中国访问，在美国大使馆开记者会，他先拿出来的是一些从秀水街买来的商品，他说，他是在大使馆的工作人员的带领下找到这些东西的，其实我很想告诉他，买这些东西的商店，大部分的主顾就是来自大使馆，来自到中国旅游的外国游客，当中包括了太多的美国人。
美国政府抓住知识产权问题不放，说到底还是美国公司产品进入中国市场的问题，美国的大公司，尤其是软件公司，像微软，一直在和美国政府投诉和抱怨，那就是他们的产品在中国没有平等的机会，因为太多的盗版，他们认为，从中国政府部门到国有企业，民营企业，绝大部分使用的都是盗版软件。而这样的情况，损害的是微软这样的公司的利益。大公司在美国政府里面，当然有很大的影响力，所以美国政府不断向中国政府施压，倒也没有什麽奇怪。据说比尔盖兹要在家里面请胡总吃饭，不知道会不会也借机会抱怨一下。不过美国人总是双重标准，对外人严，对自己就相当宽容。特别是在出现利益冲突的情况下。
不过知识产权的保护对于一个国家的发展有着重要的意义。一个美国的学者，曾经比较古代的中国和欧洲，指出中国之所以在技术发展和创新上从先进走向了落后，那就是没有保护知识产权的观念。所以，不管美国人是不是抓着不放，我们自己也需要看到这个问题对于国家发展的重要性。
对了，明天的华闻大直播谈乡村代课老师的问题，教育部今天宣布，将会逐步让44万多的代课老师下岗，我的第一个反应时，这样做，这些老师怎麽办，那些穷乡僻壤的学生怎麽办，不过我的朋友的反应却是，这样做太对了，不能够让孩子接受不称职的人的教育。大家怎样看呢？
From TMCNet.com:
Beijing's Netizen Base Hit 4.28mnTill the end of 2005, Beijing's netizen base has risen to more than 4.28 million, according to sources from the Beijing Information Office...
...Beijing has outstripped Hong Kong and Macao in terms of the netizen base. Hong Kong has netizens of roughly 4 million by the end of 2005 and Macau 233,000...
... The city's fixed-line phone subscribers hit 9.5 million, and its mobile phone subscribers 14.7 million.
