China's regulators have started looking askance at China's bubbling online "spoof" (恶搞 or "egao") scene, and new restrictions are coming. In recent months several high-profile parody videos have rocketed to popularity on the Internet. The phenomenon was quite nicely covered a few weeks ago by this thorough post on the Virtual China blog.

One of the better-known spoofs is a wicked parody of director Chen Kaige's overwrought film, The Promise, called The Bloody Affair of the Steamed Bun, and created by a young man named Hu Ge (downloadable here, but 50MB and in Chinese). Hu's parody earned him a lawsuit from the humor-impaired director, later dropped.

Spot the political incorrectness.

But that's probably not the clip that got the Government's eyebrows raised. More likely it was the spoof of a 1974 propaganda film called Sparkling Red Star, which was originally about the travails of a child soldier but re-edited to chronicle the rise of a popstar, a manifestly un-revolutionary topic. A reasonably balanced China Daily story reported that some critics had derided the spoof as "immoral and unacceptable", and summed up the likely official attitude with this quote lifted from a Chinese language Youth Daily story:

"Some producers of these clips may think it is great fun but they do not realize the clips damage the core values of our society."

Well, perhaps. I'd suggest the core values of Chinese society are resilient enough to withstand some Internet waggishness. But, in any event, the official sentiment was made clear by the new regulations. Internet video clips will now have to be registered with SARFT (the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television), China's broadcast censor and the same organization that licenses movies and television shows. Only authorized Web sites such as Sina, Sohu and Tom.com--the big portals in other words--will be able to distribute the videos.

The reason for steering the spoofs through the big portals is clear: The portals have centralized editorial structures and can follow and implement SARFT guidelines. They are also accomplished self-censors well attuned to what the Government will and won't accept.

So much for the spoofs then? Possibly. But according to China Daily, Hu Ge has dismissed the regulations, saying: "The new rule has nothing to do with me. I will not broadcast my films on the Internet. Instead, I will send them peer-to-peer or through MSN." By "MSN", I assume he means the chat client, which is very popular in China, and not the Web site. Still, the audience will be somewhat curtailed.

But, wait, you say. What about China's nascent video-sharing sites where anyone can post anything they like? Don't get your hopes up. Regular readers may remember that I wrote about potential troubles ahead for China's video-sharing sites a couple of weeks ago. This would seem to be the beginning of those troubles. In fact, two good blogs, Bill's Due and China Web 2.0, both suggest that this is just the first wave of a regulatory assault pointed at the video-sharing sites. It also wouldn't be inconceivable for the big international video upload sites, such as YouTube, to find themselves on the wrong side of the Great Firewall. It will happen the moment the Chinese Government believes it's becoming an alternative conduit for materials it would rather control.

But you know how it is with the Internet. Those spoofs have a way of getting around.