A Slow Boat to China

First there was Baidu, brazenly copying every look and feature from Google. Now, it seems there is www.56.com and www.tudou.com. A friend of mine in China recommended I watch the Chinese drama 奋斗, a wonderful TV drama that I’ll write about in a later post. He sent me the link to watch through www.56.com. As I looked at this Web site I had never heard of, I felt the same as when I first found Baidu. They are so blatantly copying–how do these people get away with this?

56.com <- Click for a page shot.

The obvious reason is that the ads are all Chinese, the interface is Chinese, and most importantly, the content is Chinese. In this case, the content is a Chinese New Year show with some of the most famous actors in China–Zhao Benshan (赵本山) and Song Dandan (宋丹丹). But the structure of the Web page is simply way too close to Youtube’s for me. The right side of the page are links to related movies, visitors can leave comments below the movie page, and the user is listed in the exact same way they appear on Youtube.

I’m not sure how sites like this get a hold of the programming code or software that runs Youtube–maybe they are that good at imitation. And maybe this happens in countries all over the world. Either way, I have no doubt Youtube/Google would be able to shut these Web sites down in a heartbeat if they were based in the U.S. They’re obviously stealing something.