The wearing of ancient Chinese clothing has gone rapidly from a niche hobby to a nationwide phenomenon in recent years. According to a report, the traditional Chinese clothing market in mainland China boasted an impressive 10.2 million customers. The same report revealed the top three reasons consumers choose to wear traditional Chinese clothes: their appreciation and love of traditional Chinese culture, the way its style fits their aesthetics, and mostly important, the fact the antique style lends itself well to flattering photos to post on social media.
So whether the specific traditional Chinese clothing of a character in a hot television drama can be protected under the Copyright Law?
The plaintiff claimed that it had the exclusive right of reproduction of character styles (clothing, accessories, props, modeling, etc.) in the traditional Chinese television dramas Yanxi Adventure, and reproduced the styles on the customers in the photography service.
The defendant copied many original elements of the works such as makeup, hair and hair accessories, and clothing of characters of Yanxi Adventure in the photography service which violated its copyright rights.
Court Judgement
The court held that whether the overall styles of the costume, props and ornaments of a specific figure in the Chinese traditional show Yanxi Adventure can be protected by the copyright law, it needs to judge whether it meets the requirement of originality.
In this case, from the perspective of overall modeling, these two characters the Queen and Concubine belonged to the conventional modeling of specific groups in specific historical period, namely the Qing Dynasty. The costumes they wear, the headdresses such as hairpin and velvet flowers in their hair, and the fans and handkerchiefs they held in their hands were generally reconstructed designs based on historical data. There may be changes in the design process, the degree of change failed to meet the originality and did not constitute a work under the context of copyright law.
