Since 2013, the boom of Disney's animated film "Frozen" has swept the world, not only "Elsa" and "Anna" have become the favorites of children, but also the derivatives and performances related to the film are sought after.
However, the reporter recently found that there have been many children's drama performances in the market with the "Frozen" IP gimmick to attract the audience, and more netizens have feedback on social networks that they have been "deceived".
<h2>"Anna" becomes "Ian"? The audience called it "deceived."</h2>
From October 15th to 18th, the play "Frozen", known as the "Large Puppet Fairy Tale Drama", was performed on the Himalayan Grand View Stage, Shanghai Theater and Shanghai Centre Theatre. The reporter saw from the performance flyer that the play conspicuously used the characters of "Elsa" and "Snow Treasure" in the movie "Frozen", and the English logo "FROZEN" is also very close to the title of the movie.
■ "Frozen" performance flyer front
The flyer shows that over a four-day period, the "Frozen" had as many as 25 performances, with ticket prices ranging from 80 yuan to 680 yuan. Adults can bring a child to enter for free after purchasing tickets with a ticket, among them, children who purchase 580 yuan and 680 yuan can interact on stage before the start of the show, receive themed toys, and the audience who forwards the relevant promotional links can also "take a photo with Princess Elsa" after the performance.
■ The maximum ticket price of "Frozen" performance is 680 yuan
Just by looking at these introductions, the reporter naturally associated the performance with the movie "Frozen". When further scanning the code to purchase tickets, a number of stage stills also clearly show that there are dolls in the performance that are exactly the same as the iconic character "Snow Treasure" in the movie "Frozen", and the protagonist "Elsa" is also the same as the movie.
■ The "Snow Treasure" in the promotional stills is the same as the movie version
However, in the specific ticket purchase page, the reporter found some puzzling content:
For example, the show's full title is Frozen Princess instead of Frozen, and the show doesn't have any explanation of whether Disney has authorized it.
■ "Frozen" performance poster
For example, in the plot introduction part, the drama is at least 80% similar to the plot of the movie, but the setting of some characters is obviously different. For example, the stories all take place in the "Kingdom of Allendale", the protagonists are the princess "Elsa" who is born with the ability to create ice and snow, and "Elsa" has also been locked up in the castle for nearly hurting her relatives, and fled to the mountains to build her own ice and snow kingdom after becoming an adult. But in the movie, it is the younger sister "Anna" who saves her sister "Elsa" with love; in the performance, "Anna" simply becomes "brother Little Prince Ian", and the villain is changed from "Prince of Neighboring Country" to "Old Earl who is delusional to seize the throne".
■ The plot introduction of the "Frozen" performance is very similar to the movie version
So, is "Frozen Princess" an adaptation of the movie Frozen? The reporter then called the performance party Tianen performance, and the wired customer service said, "We are playing this story, but we are a children's drama", avoiding the reporter's question about whether the play is genuinely authorized.
When repeatedly asked about the reasons for the plot changes and whether the performance will appear movie music, the operator customer service once stopped and gave a more affirmative answer: "I can only tell you that this is a children's drama we made ourselves, using "Frozen" characters, the plot and the movie may be a little different, but also close, almost; music, we are the original (pause)... It's the music of the movie. ”
Is this really the case? On October 17, some netizens appeared on social networks complaining about the performance. Some netizens said that the child's heart was thinking of watching "Frozen", but the performance content was very different, and the music was completely different, "Fortunately, I did not buy the 680 tickets I wanted to buy at the beginning, because I sold out, and I bought 480 tickets and felt that I was deceived."
■ Netizens' doubts about the performance of "Frozen"
Some netizens said that they took their children to see the performance, but the children were disappointed, and the whole performance "did not respect the original work", but "stole other people's pictures for publicity".
What's even more surprising is that after the audience questioned it, "Frozen Princess" was even added. According to the ticket purchase page on October 19, most of the performances at the Upper Theater at 18:50 on that day have sold most of the seats, with only a small number of 680 yuan, 580 yuan, 480 yuan and 380 yuan of tickets.
■ Seats will be sold for the show on October 19
<h2>Is the performance suspected of infringement? The key is to mislead consumers</h2>
Obviously not authorized by the original version of Frozen, why did Frozen's Ice Princess go viral in the name of the movie?
Not only did the audience in Shanghai claim to be "deceived", the reporter found that netizens everywhere had complained about this children's drama on the national tour. In May this year, some Guangzhou netizens complained, because the performance is recommended by the school, I didn't think about it and bought a ticket, but I found that the change was too big, "or don't use the name of Frozen, engage in this kind of cottage performance to deceive children."
Judging from the WeChat public account of "Tianen Performance", after bidding farewell to Shanghai, this performance will also go to Beijing, Wuxi, Dalian and other places.
Of course, this is not the first time that there has been an "original children's drama" in the performance market that has attracted audiences under the banner of Disney's "Frozen". In July this year, some Shanghai netizens said that because the child was a fan of Disney's "Frozen", he purchased the performance tickets for the "large-scale original parent-child magic children's stage play "Frozen"", and there were a large number of Disney dolls for sale outside the performance theater. However, from the perspective of the performance content, except for the heroine named "Elsa" and the puppet name "Snow Treasure", the performance plot of the play has almost nothing to do with "Frozen", and the stage is even more shoddy.
■ A number of children's drama performances have been named "Frozen"
After the investigation, the reporter found that in addition to the aforementioned "Frozen Princess", there are currently a number of children's drama performances featuring "Frozen" on the performance market, including "Frozen Love" and "Frozen Snow Treasure Adventure". Most of these performances are conducted in the form of national tours, and the production involves a number of different performance companies.
■ These performances are all promoted with the movie version as a gimmick
Perhaps in order to avoid copyright risks, these performances often indicate on posters "adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen"" but use a lot of characters and pictures of disney movies "Frozen" when promoting ticket sales, and the protagonists also include "Elsa" and "Snow". In addition to children's dramas, there are also some platter film concerts that have also been named "Frozen", and the relevant promotional methods are quite close to the children's dramas suspected of copycats.
■Promotional materials for related performances
Lawyer Li Yuming, a partner at Zhong Lun Wende Law Firm in Shanghai, told reporters that if disney is not officially authorized, these performance promotional materials that use the character image of the movie "Frozen" will constitute an infringement of the copyright of the original work, and may also constitute unfair competition for film-related derivative performances, "As for whether the performance content constitutes copyright infringement, it is necessary to further compare the plot, characters, costumes, music, etc. of the performance version to determine how much content constitutes substantial similarity." ”
For consumers, these performance promotional materials constitute misleading and suspected of defrauding consumers, "According to the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law, the judgment of whether the operator's behavior misleads consumers should be based on the cognitive level and identification ability of ordinary consumers." Combined with the promotional materials of the performance and the introduction of customer service, it is easy for the audience to identify such a performance as a stage play version of Disney's Frozen. Judging from the feedback from the current audience, there are indeed consumers who have misunderstood and their legitimate rights and interests have been infringed. ”
Lawyer Li Yuming said that the consumption of cultural performances is also protected by the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law, and the audience can protect their rights and interests through legal channels, "for example, Article 55 of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law stipulates that if a business operator provides goods or services fraudulently, it shall increase the compensation for the losses suffered by the consumers in accordance with the requirements of the consumers, and the amount of the increased compensation shall be three times the price of the goods purchased by the consumers or the cost of receiving services." If the amount of additional compensation is less than 500 yuan, it will be 500 yuan. ”
Source: Thoughtful