Keepin' it real fake, part LV: Disneyland!

Not content just cranking out an endless stream of ridiculous iPhone clones or even copying the occasional car design, the brilliant knockoff artists in China decided to lay it all on the line and rip off... Disneyland. As in, the themepark. The whole thing. Park officials deny having any connection with the official characters, claiming everything in the park is an original design, but something tells us they're not being, um, completely honest. Check the read link for some more incredibly hilarious photos, including a Minnie doppelganger the park owners claim "is not a mouse" but instead "a cat with very large ears." Looks like the Meizu PR team has been working a little overtime, eh?

[Via BoingBoing]

[ph @ May 4th 2007 4:12AM]

Seriously scary. I did not think china could copy something like this! mp3 players are one thing, theme parks another.

[jaapV @ May 4th 2007 4:24AM]

This is freakin hilarious:

"Some have claimed that the park is illegally copying Disney’s Minnie Mouse. However, the park’s operators have insisted that the character on the right is not a mouse. It is a cat with very large ears!"

I thought the Chinese coppied gadgets to show what they can do technological-wise. But this is just weird.

[eh @ May 4th 2007 4:16AM]

atleast the kids get to have fun

[tekdroid @ May 4th 2007 4:26AM]

why mess with a proven formula?


I mean, what great innovation.
And coincidence.

[Gilbert Garcia @ May 4th 2007 5:39AM]

Whats even funnier is Hong Kong Disney Land's website! check it out HKDL's Adventure land has been taken over by pirates and is now called Pirate Land. Its even labled on the map as Pirate land! I don't know if this is just Disney promoting their latest Pirate movie or if they are making a comment on China's piracy. Still ironic when you think about it. Here I just got done reading an article on the whole park being coppied and now I see HKDL being taken over by pirates! Yes the world has gone mad when we can mistake cats for mice!

[Adam @ May 4th 2007 5:04AM]

Seriously, how gullible is engadget to make this a news item? Its not April 1st. The URL is http://www.bs-amusement-park.com/. Does that not tell you something? Isn't there enough China-bashing from US fear-profiteers? Why don't we leave the country that makes all the gadgets you report on alone?

[Brian @ May 4th 2007 11:59AM]

it tells us that they have a terrible marketing department. it stands for Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park. no joke here, it's real.

[Jeff @ May 4th 2007 4:21PM]

Adam, that BS in URL stands for Beijing Shijingshan .. it just so happened to be called BS Amusement Park ... how ironic~

[Rynth @ May 4th 2007 5:05AM]

Lol, I love it when the same story appears everywhere.. I only posted about this on ./ a minute ago!

Oh well!

Perhaps Disney will try and sue China... That could be interesting.

[Unregistered @ May 5th 2007 1:29PM]

They are just afraid of the rising superpower. They remember how they bullied the weak nation in the Opium Wars, and so they are afraid.

[Kevin @ May 6th 2007 3:39AM]

who is 'they'? The US or China?

[elan @ May 4th 2007 5:23AM]

Hello Disneyrand... what brings you to Engadget?

Really, though.

[Moe Abe @ May 4th 2007 5:56AM]

When a country manufacturers most of you consumer goods, this is bound to happen.

[snesgirl @ May 4th 2007 6:48AM]

hi-LARIOUS :)

Obviuosly to the chinesem, nothing even exsists outside of china

[ZATZAi @ May 4th 2007 6:50AM]

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.911275,116.202500&spn=0.003192,0.002951&t=k&hl=en

[akijikan @ May 4th 2007 7:28AM]

You're missing the best part: IT'S STATE OWNED! lol.

[CowboyGA @ May 4th 2007 8:43AM]

Isn't China at this point simply a Communist country whos economy is based on idea theft? I love the cheap electronics, but it's a shame that part of the reason they're cheap is because they're stolen from North American and UK/European efforts.

[MAK1981 @ May 4th 2007 9:17AM]

Not just ANY Communist country, but a Communist country that will be the major superpower in the next decade, with 20% of the world's population.

Yes, the Chinese take more pride in building machines that can copy an exact replica of US automobiles and stamp them out en masse, than doing something on their own. But when you go from a 3rd world country to a quickly emerging superpower, why should you obey by the same global regulations that others follow? Seriously, who's going to stop you? :-D

But you can't really blame them... if the U.S. and other countries (everyone in the UN?) banned imports from China, this wouldn't be happening in the first place. Oh well, we'll live with the consequences if we all start speaking Chinese one day, hehe.

[Michael H. @ May 4th 2007 9:25AM]

That is the fugliest Snow White I have ever seen. I'm never sleeping now....

[SuperChuck @ May 4th 2007 9:40AM]

China is a communist nation. China does not have copyright or patent laws and does not recognize copyrights or patents from other nations. In communist states, ideas, concepts, designs, artworks, etc. are all property of the state (more precisely "the people").

To a capitalist nation, reproducing someone else's design is "ripping off". To a communist nation, patenting a design for exclusivity is "capitalist pigism"

[mj @ May 4th 2007 9:56AM]

You ever get the feeling, if you walked around China long enough, you'd find a copy of New York City as it appeared in that Jackie Chan movie? And all the taxis would be Chery Capiches...

[FRiC @ May 4th 2007 10:22AM]

One funny thing is that the amusement park has been open for 20+ years and is one of the most popular sights in Beijing. It's only making the news now since some guy blogged about it.

[Kei @ May 4th 2007 5:06PM]

I love their motto
Disney land is too far! Come to Beijing Amusement park!

http://www.bs-amusement-park.com/ChinaIn/about-e.asp

[SHoe @ May 4th 2007 10:56AM]

>>China is a communist nation. China does not have copyright or patent laws and does not recognize copyrights or patents from other nations.

Really??? Yes - that's the state of patent law in China in 1968. For those of us who live in 2007, there is Google to keep us from making fools of ourselves:

http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo_English/flfg/zlflfg/200203/t20020327_33872.htm

http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo_English/flfg/

Obviously China has not been good at enforcing patent laws - but only a bunch of american's would fill tech blog with Naive, out-of-date Dogma like this! These comments are just embarassing you guys! jesus...

Do you really think western comapnies would invest the billions that they invest in China, if there was no patent laws ( along with western-style laws that govern all other aspects of business)?

Again: they are doing a bad job of enforcing them - but that is slowly changing too.

[nigel @ May 4th 2007 11:02AM]

Ballz to rip off Disneyland = truly 1337 status

[CaptSaltyJack @ May 4th 2007 11:33AM]

Given the quality of products from China, I'd be deathly afraid to ride on one of those roller coasters. No thanks.

[Edwin Austin @ May 4th 2007 11:45AM]

Wouldn't that be Disneyrand?

[squeak @ Jul 31st 2007 10:59PM]

Actually no. It's not Japan, but China, so there -is- an 'l' sound.

[Edwin Austin @ May 4th 2007 1:25PM]

Oops, my bad.

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ May 4th 2007 11:58AM]

Every country in the world copied from others at one time or another. The US copied everything from Europe. France copied from Italy (Renaissance), Italy (or rather, Rome) copied from Greece, and so forth. This is yet another symptom that China will most likely become the #1 superpower sometimes during the 21st century. They are quite independent and rather autonomous. Suppose they decide to stop manufacturing for a day and imagine the consequences in the US.

[BigD @ May 4th 2007 12:17PM]

http://www.bs-amusement-park.com/

[Pom @ May 4th 2007 12:18PM]

what if WE copied them

do,do,do,do
do,do,do,do

[Michael @ May 4th 2007 4:39PM]

LOL. That website is hilarious. I love how the roller coaster's going backwards.

[Trevor Bommersbach @ May 4th 2007 2:09PM]

Do forget that China doesn't allow much travel for its citizens outside their own country. They only allow free travel to other turd world / communist countries. You pretty much need to be married ot an American citizen just to take a vacation in US from China.

There is a Disneyland in HK, but there are too many travel restrictions (lengthy process just to visit) for Mainlanders and it's still too expensive for a majority of the populace. They need something more local with less travel restricitons to be affordable enough.

Now none of this excuses China's blatant copyright infridgement. I'm sure Disney would love to open a Disneyland in Mainland China with enough guarrantees. But China will never give the sort of guarrantees Disney is looking for. China keeps all the money local by knowingly infringing on patents/copyrights for products limited to their own markets. The Chinese government has zero incentive to honor those patents/copyrights when they are profiting like they are. I mean, why give foreign companies a piece of your pie, when you can just keep the whole thing to yourself right? Especially when you are the law. (International law doesn't seem to apply to China, in case you haven't noticed)

[Eric @ May 4th 2007 2:30PM]

Everything ever made is a rip off of something currently made by or that will ever be made by Apple. Even shit not invented yet. Don't you people learn anything from Engadget?

[Ceejay @ May 4th 2007 2:33PM]

Yeah... but did they copy the 5 dollar churros? I thought so.....

[Blue Sam @ May 4th 2007 4:00PM]

if I remmy correct, European been took the invent from China long time ago such as paper, silk, etc. How irony, isn't it?

[steve @ May 4th 2007 5:17PM]

I loved the "Donald Duck" with the kid pix.
http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/01/fake-donald-duck.jpg
I think the kid was figuring out how to make Peking Duck :)

[Rasti @ May 9th 2007 7:34AM]

Disneyland is a clone of Argentina´s Republi ca de los Niños (according to Wikipedia) Republica de los Niños, opened to the public 4 years before Disneyland, and visited by Walt Disney himself.
It was created by Eva Peron (remember Madonna´s "Evita" movie? )
The size of the buildings is scaled down to fit children as adults.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland#Concept_and_construction
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=republica+de+los+ni%C3%B1os

[R. C. @ Jun 23rd 2007 1:08PM]

Quote from their website, they won an award as an “Advanced Unit in Implementing the Birth Control Policy”.

Ummmmm... What?