ARTS / CULTURE & LEISURE
Journalist accuses hot crime drama’s screenwriter for plagiarism, expert says ‘more evidences’ needed
Published: Jan 22, 2025 09:16 PM
A promotional photo of <em>Drifting Aw</em>ay Photo: Courtesy of Weibo

A promotional photo of Drifting Away Photo: Courtesy of Weibo


Including a latest statement made at midnight on Tuesday, Chinese screenwriter Chen Ping has recently issued two statements to deny the plagiarism controversy surrounding the popular crime-themed drama Drifting Away, which is currently airing. 

Chen, the drama's screenwriter, responded to primarily addresses journalist Wang Meng's statement that Chen "bleached" an in-depth investigative report that he had written and was published on Southern Metropolis Daily in 2012. Wang's report was titled as Bleaching. The working title is the same to Chen's 2022 novel, which was the basis for Drifting Away's script. 

Both of Wang and Chen's stories were inspired by a crime occurred in 2002 in the city of Jilin, Northeast China's Jilin Province, involving the murder and dismemberment of a victim. In Chen's statement, she mentioned that she had "personally interviewed the brother of the case's main suspect" and that she had decided to use "Bleaching" as the novel's title right from the start. Additionally, in her novel, the character of "Zhen Zhen" is her own original creation, Chen said. 

"As a content creator, I support resolving the issue through professional legal channels and approaches," Chen said. 

Gao Ling, a legal expert with experience in dealing with copyright infringement, told the Global Times that the similarities in title or even characters alone "cannot determine whether plagiarism has occurred" since both works were inspired by the same real-life event. 

"The judgement should be made based on an assessment of similarities in expression, word using and detailed depictions between the two works," Gao said. 

In an interview with Jimu News, Wang claimed that in Chen's novel, the main contents in its "fourth and fifth chapters" are copied from his report on Southern Metropolis Daily. 

He said there are 17 similarities between Chen's novel and his report. Given both creators' works share the same title, he pointed at some suspiciously similar details, for example, he had made an error in his report where he described a "card beside the hospital bed" as a "medical report card" and this same mistake appears in Chen's novel. 

The journalist also called on the show's streaming platform, iQIYI, to enhance its reviewing system. He said that the platform has so much self-produced content that "needs to comply with laws and regulations and not violate social morality and public decency, and there is certainly a responsibility [of the Iqiyi] to review the content."

Ma, a chief producer of iQIYI, has said the platform own "the complete copyright chain to the novel."

Prior to this dispute, Chen has also been accused of "infringement" in other cases. 

In 2013, the famous writer Bi Feiyu's novel Tuina (lit: Massage) was adapted as a TV series with Chen as screenwriter. While the series grew popular, a book called Tuina was published by a publishing house with the author labelled as Chen. The case was finally settled and the court found that Chen and the publishing house had violated Bi's copyrights. 

"They are just taking advantage of the loopholes," Wang, the reporter, said. He also emphasized that intellectual property cases are a long fight, and individuals like him can't afford to spend that much time on them.

"What the journalist should do in the future is to gather more evidences that show narrations, words using and depictions in the two books are similar," Gao Ling, a legal expert with experiences of dealing with copyright infringements, told the Global Times.