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hiring a lawyer for around SG$250, the compensation may only be $5, which is the profit that the<br />
shirt might potentially make for the stall owner.<br />
Another difficult case was when William Chua, a Singaporean illustrator who specializes in<br />
Japanese style illustrations and pandas, found his work often appearing on goods sold on several<br />
foreign shopping websites. He usually has no problem reporting to western websites and the pirated<br />
goods listings were swiftly removed. However reporting to Asian websites like the famous online<br />
shopping portal “Taobao” in China proved to be useless. The reason Taobao gave was that he had no<br />
evidence that the work was his. While talented creators like William may have no shortage of new<br />
bright ideas, pirates quickly update their inventory as soon as he uploads his latest panda online.<br />
Because of this, William had given up fighting with the Asian pirates and concentrates in selling his<br />
prints in Western markets and doing freelance. 12 He currently has a loyal pool of fans on Facebook<br />
and on threadless, which is a mass-sourcing t-shirt printing company. This is precisely the problem<br />
faced by small start-ups and individual artists who lack the resources of big companies like Sanrio<br />
who can afford to employ a team of legal professionals to protect their intellectual property assets in<br />
difficult markets like China. Therefore although China is a huge market, copyright protection is<br />
impossible without partnering with big companies or to be published under a reputable publisher to<br />
help protect Evacomics’ intellectual property.<br />
12 Chua, William. Personal interview. 30 Mar. 2013<br />
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