Licensing is here in Chinese online video

I saw news this morning (Bill Bishop and the China Web 2.0 Review both citing the Legal Daily via Sina) about upcoming introduction of licensing requirements under China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) for online streaming video services.

Both bloggers question the degree to which China's several entrepreneurial web video startups (Toodou, UUME, Yoqoo, Wangyou, etc.) will be able to get the licenses which the major players like Sina, Sohu, and Netease should be able to attain.

For my part, while I am not that surprised that the government is stepping into this new area with enhanced regulation, I wonder to what degree foreign firms will also be subject to such regulation. For example, while I have good access to YouTube, all the talk recently about Google Video made me want to try it out, but I unfortunately couldn't because "the playback feature of Google Video isn't available" in China. The same questions as always about the enforceability of the new policies remain, but the new licensing policy definitely puts a stress on a fast-growing industry segment even before it has had the time to develop a stable business model.