SARFT Issues Online Video Content Regulations
Communications World Website, 3/31/09
The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) has released new regulations concerning the regulation of online audio-visual program content. The regulations are directed at online (including mobile Internet) audio-visual programming, and were sent to all radio, film, and television bureaus in all provinces, autonomous regions, and directly-administered municipalities. The regulations specifically ban all content that:
1) Runs counter to basic principles laid out in the Chinese constitution;
2) Harms the unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of China;
3) Divulges national secrets, endangers national security, or damages national honor and interests;
4) Incites racial anger, racial discrimination, harms national unity, or runs against national customs and practices;
5) Promulgates cults or superstitions;
6) Disrupts social order or stability;
7) Incites minors to acts of violence or to otherwise break the law in terms of obscenity, gambling, or terrorist activities;
8) Humiliates or slanders individuals, or otherwise infringes on the privacy and other legal interests of citizens;
9) Harms public morality or national Chinese culture;
10) Is not in accordance with related laws and/or administrative rules.
The regulations also require audio-visual service providers to edit or delete infringing online material, and require online audio-visual enterprises providing access to films, television series, cartoons, and documentaries to obtain relevant broadcast licenses from the appropriate government departments. Foreign and domestic films, television series, cartoons, and documentaries that have not obtained relevant public broadcast and publishing licenses are forbidden to be broadcast online.
Keywords: policy foreign content film Internet online video SARFT animation regulation national security
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