After 15 years, Guo Jingming finally apologized to Zhuang Yu

The Paper

At 00:00 on December 31, 2020, Guo Jingming apologized on Weibo for plagiarizing Zhuang Yu's work "Inside the Circle and Outside the Circle" in the novel "How Much Flowers In Dreams" and said that he would donate all the copyright income of "How Much Flowers In Dreams" was donated to Zhuang Yu.

Screenshot of Guo Jingming's Weibo

Event review

At the end of 2004, the Beijing Municipal First Intermediate People's Court rendered a first-instance judgment on the copyright dispute between Guo Jingming and Zhuang Yu, ordering Guo Jingming and Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House to immediately stop the publication and distribution of the book "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Dreams", jointly compensate plaintiff Zhuang Yu for economic losses of 200,000 yuan, publicly apologize to plaintiff Zhuang Yu in newspapers, and the defendant Beijing Book Building Co., Ltd. stop selling the book "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Dreams".

Subsequently, both parties were not satisfied with the first-instance judgment and appealed.

In May 2006, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court finally ruled that Guo Jingming's novel "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Your Dreams" plagiarized writer Zhuang Yu's work "Outside the Circle", and Guo Jingming and Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House jointly compensated Zhuang Yu for economic losses of 200,000 yuan, recovered 10,000 yuan of consolation money for mental damage, stopped selling "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Dreams", and publicly apologized, and was executed within a time limit of 15 days.

On June 16, 2006, Zhuang Yu submitted an application for compulsory enforcement to the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court, asking the court to take enforcement measures against Guo Jingming's "refusal to apologize." The First Intermediate People's Court decided to publish an announcement in China Youth Daily based on the effective judgment, and the announcement fee of 14,000 yuan was paid by Guo Jingming.

On the evening of December 21, 2020, screenwriters Yu Fei and Song Fangjin released a joint letter from 111 screenwriters, directors, producers, and writers, pointing out that Guo Jingming, who has a bad track of plagiarism, and Yu Zheng appeared in the variety show to hype the topic, in order to chase the click rate and ratings, which caused disgust among relevant practitioners and all sectors of society, calling for not providing a stage for plagiarists, publicizing artists with both virtue and art, and respecting originality. The number of signatories on the joint letter the following day increased to 156.

On December 23, Xinhua News Agency interviewed the four core initiators and participants of the open letter and conducted in-depth reports on the joint publication of more than 100 film and television practitioners to resist Yu Zheng and Guo Jingming, who have "bad deeds of plagiarism".

On December 24, Xinhua Continued to Ask: Who is providing a stage for "bad artists" to appear? How to curb the bad behavior of capital to use "bad deeds" as a selling point? What are the responsibilities of capital and certain media that strive to whitewash "bad artists"?

The full text of Guo Jingming's Weibo is as follows:

At this moment, it is the last day of 2020. At this special end of the year, when there is a new understanding of life, I would like to make an apology for being too late.

In 2006, the court ruled that my novel "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Your Dreams" copied Ms. Zhuang Yu's novel "Outside the Circle", and the court made a judgment at that time: 1 Compensation for Ms. Zhuang Yu 200,000 yuan; 2 Public apology in China Youth Daily, or directly published the content of the judgment in the newspaper.

At that time, I could not face my own heart, so when the lawyer asked me whether I chose to write an apology letter or publish the judgment, the vanity and resistance of my youth made me choose to avoid apologizing and directly publish the judgment in the newspaper to fulfill the legal punishment. At that time, I was very resistant and refused to admit my mistake.

On all subsequent occasions, I avoided talking about plagiarism because for me it was like a wound that could not be healed, and I did not dare to tear it open, let alone face it.

Fifteen years have passed, and this mistake has been with me, from my youth, to my youth, to now I am now moving towards the midpoint of my forty-year-old life. I have always received criticism from teachers and netizens, so today, I choose to face my past mistakes, face the harm I caused to Ms. Zhuang Yu, and face all the readers and partners who have been betrayed by me, I owe everyone an apology.

Ms. Zhuang Yu, I solemnly apologize for the harm I caused to you, and I am very sorry. I also want to apologize to the public, to all the original authors, and to China's hard-won creative environment, sorry, I did a very bad demonstration, please take me as a warning, refuse plagiarism, respect creation.

While apologizing, I will calculate all the royalties and all the income obtained online and offline after the publication of the novel "How Much Do You Know in The Dream" and compensate Ms. Zhuang Yu in full. If Ms. Zhuang Yu is not willing to accept it, I will donate this money to a public welfare charity and accept public supervision.

For the past fifteen years, I have always said to myself that I want to rely on my works and hard work to make myself successful, and prove that I can change my life by hard work. But now I understand that if I had been running away from my past and refusing to admit and confront the mistakes I made in my youth, I would never have been a capitalized person.

Again, I'm sorry to everyone, I'm very sorry.

Editor-in-Charge: Xu Liyi