“人民的文學(xué)”：中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)IP創(chuàng)造財富神話

BEIJING — “The Journey of Flower” is a novel that has never been sold in bookstores. It was first published on a literature website in 2009, but its story, a martial arts fantasy, is now one of China’s most successful brands.

北京——《花千骨》是一部從來沒有在書店銷售過的小說。它最早于2009年發(fā)布在一個文學(xué)網(wǎng)站上，但這個武俠玄幻故事現(xiàn)在是中國最成功的品牌之一。

Since the rights to the novel were sold about four years ago, the tale — about a god and goddess fated to kill each other and who fall in love in the afterlife — has been spun off into a franchise that includes a video game, a coming movie and a hit television series that has become the first drama in China to pass 20 billion views online.

自小說版權(quán)在四年前售出之后，這個有關(guān)一位男神和一位女神命中注定相互殘殺、來生又墜入愛河的故事，已經(jīng)衍生出一系列周邊產(chǎn)品，其中包括一款電子游戲、一部即將上映的電影，以及首部在中國突破200億在線觀看次數(shù)的熱門電視劇。

The journey of that novel, from obscurity to mainstream cultural status, resembles one that many internet-only creations are now taking here as a voracious appetite for intellectual property has sent producers foraging on the web.

隨著對知識產(chǎn)權(quán)的巨大需求促使制片人在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上展開搜尋，這部小說像許多之前只在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上存在的作品一樣，從默默無聞到逐漸獲得主流文化地位。

“IP” — intellectual property, or original copyrighted material that can be bought and adapted for other formats — is one of the hottest buzzwords in China. As the country’s fast-growing film, television and video game industries vie for audiences, entertainment companies in search of quality homegrown content are snapping up IPs left and right.

“IP”——知識產(chǎn)權(quán)，或說可以購買或被改編成其他形式的原創(chuàng)版權(quán)內(nèi)容——是中國最熱門的流行詞匯之一。隨著中國快速增長的影視和電子游戲行業(yè)對觀眾展開爭奪，尋找高品質(zhì)本土內(nèi)容的娛樂公司開始四處搶購IP。

To find good ones, executives turn to the usual sources: books, existing films and comics. But increasingly, they are mining a once-secluded corner of the internet that has become a booming billion-dollar business: a flourishing online literary world that bypasses ink and paper entirely to grab readers by their smartphones, with subjects like tomb raiding, science fiction, fantasy, romance and martial arts.

為尋找好的IP，娛樂公司高管們會訴諸于常見的來源：書籍、現(xiàn)有的電影和漫畫作品。但他們也越來越多地挖掘互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上一個曾經(jīng)不太被注意的角落，這里已經(jīng)成為一個價值數(shù)十億美元的火爆市場：蒸蒸日上的網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)世界。它完全省略了書籍印刷制作的過程，以盜墓、科幻、玄幻、愛情和武俠等題材在手機(jī)上捕獲讀者。

“Online literature in China is full of good story lines and IPs,” said Jiang Chenzhou, 30, the author of “The Journey of Flower,” who is better known to online readers by her web name, Fresh Guoguo. “On the internet, you have space for creativity. There is more room for expression, fewer restrictions and less pressure.

“中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)里有不少好故事和IP，”小說《花千骨》的作者、30歲的江晨舟說，她更為人熟知的是網(wǎng)名“Fresh果果”。“在網(wǎng)上，你有創(chuàng)作的空間。有更多表達(dá)的空間，限制更少，壓力也更少。”

“When I finished the novel in 2009, the market for content was just starting to heat up. Two years later, producers began reaching out, asking what I thought about adapting the story. Now everyone is talking about IPs.”

“我2009年完成這部小說的時候，內(nèi)容市場才剛剛開始升溫。兩年后，制作人已經(jīng)開始四處搜尋，詢問我對改編這個故事的看法。現(xiàn)在所有人都在談?wù)揑P。”

To entertainment executives, online-literature websites, some with libraries of hundreds of thousands of titles, offer a trove of market-tested characters and plots incubated in a relatively censor-free environment.

對娛樂企業(yè)的高管來說，網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)網(wǎng)站——有些手握幾十萬部作品版權(quán)——提供了大量在審查相對寬松的環(huán)境中創(chuàng)作出來的、經(jīng)過市場檢驗的角色和故事情節(jié)。

“The whole entertainment industry is still fairly conservative,” said Chen Ming, head of products at Shanda Games and a former editor at Qidian, one of the largest online-literature sites. “Creating your own original fantasy content is not a sure bet. But the market has already shown that adapting popular IPs from online literature can make a lot of money.”

“整個娛樂行業(yè)的環(huán)境依然十分保守，”盛大游戲公司的產(chǎn)品主管陳明(音)說。此人之前曾在中國最大的網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)網(wǎng)站之一起點(diǎn)中文網(wǎng)擔(dān)任編輯。“創(chuàng)作自己原創(chuàng)的玄幻內(nèi)容不一定就能保證成功。但市場已經(jīng)顯示，改編受歡迎的網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)IP可以賺很多錢。”

Ma Zhongjun, chief executive of Ciwen Media, which produced last year’s television adaptation of “The Journey of Flower,” summed up the business logic: “You are spending money to buy safety. Americans are the best at this. That’s why they keep making sequels.”

去年將《花千骨》改編成電視劇的慈文傳媒首席執(zhí)行官馬中駿對其中的商業(yè)邏輯進(jìn)行了總結(jié)：“你在花錢買可以穩(wěn)賺的東西。美國人最擅長這個。那是他們不斷拍續(xù)集的原因。”

Two of the highest-grossing films in China in the past year were based on popular online novels about raiding tombs. One of them, “Mojin: The Lost Legend,” based on Tian Xia Ba Chang’s “Ghost Blows Out the Light,” earned $250 million after its release in December 2015, making it the fifth-highest-grossing movie ever in China, according to the Ent Group, which monitors box-office sales.

去年中國票房最高的兩部電影都是由盜墓題材的網(wǎng)絡(luò)小說改編。其中，由天下霸唱的《鬼吹燈》改編的《尋龍訣》在2015年12月上映后，獲得了2.5億美元的票房。據(jù)監(jiān)測票房數(shù)據(jù)的藝恩網(wǎng)統(tǒng)計，該片成為中國有史以來票房第五高的影片。

Some 297 million people — 43 percent of China’s internet user base — read web literature last year, making it among the top 10 reasons that Chinese went to the internet last year, according to a government report.

政府發(fā)布的一份報告顯示，去年中國有大約2.97億人——占中國網(wǎng)民的43%——閱讀網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)作品，它因此成為中國人上網(wǎng)的十大原因之首。

That popularity has been partly a response to China’s traditionally staid publishing industry, which is straitjacketed by prepublication censorship and strict regulations on the distribution of the book identifiers known as International Standard Book Numbers, or ISBNs.

這種受歡迎程度有一部分是對歷來比較古板的中國出版業(yè)做出的反應(yīng)，后者受到出版前的審查制度和名為國際標(biāo)準(zhǔn)書號(Standard Book Numbers，簡稱ISBN)的書號分發(fā)制度的嚴(yán)格限制。

Websites in China, by contrast, offer a freewheeling space where writers can publish the kind of genre fiction that is not only comparatively rare in the book business but also has been subject to little interference from editors, let alone censors.

相比之下，中國的網(wǎng)站提供了無拘無束的空間。在那里，作者不僅可以發(fā)布在圖書行業(yè)屬于比較罕見類型的小說，而且很少受到編輯的干涉，更不用說審查人員。

Creating this content is often an interactive process that involves readers. Writers can see their comments and sometimes respond to them.

創(chuàng)作這類內(nèi)容往往是一個與讀者互動的過程。作者可以看到他們的評論，有時會做出回應(yīng)。

“Online literature is really the people’s literature,” Mr. Ma said. “There are very few commercial elements involved in the writing process, so this body of literature tends to be very pure.”

“網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)真的是人民的文學(xué)，”馬中駿說。“寫作過程中牽涉的商業(yè)因素很少，所以這種文學(xué)往往非常純粹。”

The growing focus in China on selling intellectual property to entertainment companies is a shift away from the online-literature industry’s previous business model. Big companies like Shanda Cloudary (which merged last year with Tencent Literature to become the dominant market player, Yuewen Group) once focused on promoting amateur writers by negotiating book deals with print publishers and collecting subscription fees from readers.

將知識產(chǎn)權(quán)出售給娛樂公司日益成為關(guān)注的重點(diǎn)，這與網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)行業(yè)之前的商業(yè)模式已經(jīng)有所不同。盛大文學(xué)等大公司(去年與騰訊文學(xué)合并為閱文集團(tuán)，成為占主導(dǎo)地位的市場力量)以前主要將注意力放在推廣業(yè)余作者上，方式是和傳統(tǒng)出版商談出版合約，以及向讀者征收訂閱費(fèi)。

In a fortunate coincidence, the growth in income from intellectual property sales has helped offset revenue lost through piracy, which remains a significant problem for China’s web-publishing platforms.

因為一種幸運(yùn)的巧合，來自知識產(chǎn)權(quán)銷售的收入增長幫助抵消了盜版問題帶來的收入損失。后者依然是中國網(wǎng)絡(luò)出版平臺面臨的一個重要問題。

Writers have also profited. Ms. Jiang estimates she has earned $1.5 million from the sale of various rights to “The Journey of Flower.” Last year, Zhang Wei, also known as Tang Jia San Shao, earned $16.8 million, making him the wealthiest web writer in China, according to the newspaper China Daily.

作者也因此獲利。據(jù)江晨舟估計，她已經(jīng)從《花千骨》的各種版權(quán)收入銷售中獲得了150萬美元。據(jù)《中國日報》報道，去年張威——也稱唐家三少——獲得了1680萬美元的收入，成為中國收入最高的網(wǎng)絡(luò)作家。

Mr. Zhang said most of his income now comes from selling his properties to various media and from sales of print copies of his fantasy-themed online novels. Mr. Zhang, 35, who by his own count has written more than 160 books, said that one of his properties sold for $3 million.

35歲的張威表示，現(xiàn)在他的收入大多來自向各種媒介出售版權(quán)，以及他的玄幻題材網(wǎng)絡(luò)小說的實(shí)體書銷售。據(jù)張威自己統(tǒng)計，他已經(jīng)寫了160多本書。他表示，其中一項版權(quán)賣了300萬美元。

Though he has already earned a fortune, Mr. Zhang said his ultimate goal was to create a franchise like the Walt Disney Company.

盡管他已經(jīng)賺到了大筆財富，但張威表示他的最終目標(biāo)是打造一個類似迪士尼公司的特許經(jīng)營品牌。

“Disney has a lot of characters whose popularity is reinforced through movies and cartoons,” he said, after offering that he had published something online every day for the past 12 years. “I am looking for a partner company who can take all of my IPs and replicate this model.”

“迪士尼有很多角色，它們的受歡迎程度通過電影和動畫片的播放得到加強(qiáng)，”他說。此前他表示在過去的12年里，他每天都堅持在網(wǎng)上發(fā)點(diǎn)東西。“我在尋找一個可以收走我所有的IP，然后復(fù)制這一模式的合作公司。”

Of course, not every popular online novel translates into a popular adaptation. And censorship remains a concern. Over the years, the government has sought greater regulations on online literature, calling on publishing platforms to increase monitoring, especially to look for politically sensitive or sexually explicit content.

當(dāng)然，不是所有受歡迎的網(wǎng)絡(luò)小說都能變成受歡迎的改編作品。審查問題依然是一個顧慮。多年來，政府一直在尋求對網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)施加更嚴(yán)格的管控，要求發(fā)布平臺加強(qiáng)監(jiān)測，尤其是尋找政治上比較敏感或有色情意味的內(nèi)容。

Still, online literature remains a more lenient environment, something that dawned on Ms. Jiang a she talked with potential production partners about adapting “The Journey of Flower.”

不過，網(wǎng)絡(luò)文學(xué)依然是個相對比較寬松的環(huán)境。在與潛在制作伙伴談?wù)摗痘ㄇЧ恰返母木帟r，江晨舟才開始意識到這一點(diǎn)。

“At first, a lot of companies were reluctant to take on the story,” she said, “because they said it wouldn’t pass the censorship process.

“一開始，很多公司不愿接這個故事，”她說，“因為他們覺得它通不過審查。”

“But when I write characters, I create evil people who are actually good and good people who are actually bad, because I believe humanity is complicated. But that complexity is not suitable for television.”

“但是在創(chuàng)作人物的時候，我創(chuàng)造了實(shí)際上比較好的壞人和實(shí)際上有點(diǎn)壞的好人，因為我覺得人性是復(fù)雜的。但這種復(fù)雜性不適合電視屏幕。”