A prestigious Chinese university on Monday apologized for using a video which netizens claim plagiarized a 2014 University of Tokyo video.
"The video, To My Light, which has been suspected of plagiarism in recent days, has harmed the reputation of Fudan University, hurt the public's feelings and created a negative impact. And we apologize for these," read an announcement of the university published on its official Sina Weibo.
The university said it promises to investigate the case and would hold those responsible for the incident accountable.
To mark its 110th anniversary, Fudan University released the video on Wednesday. As it went viral, netizens began to accuse the university of plagiarizing another video from the University of Tokyo in 2014, entitled Explorer.
Both videos feature a female graduate - for Fudan an aircraft test engineer, for Tokyo an astronaut - who walks around her respective campus clad in a flight suit. Both videos end with the female graduate taking off her helmet.
Teng Yudong, the video's producer and deputy head of the university's publicity department, admitted on Thursday that his team used a lot of narrative methods and techniques of expression from Explorer, reported news website thepaper.cn.
"I should take responsibility for all the criticism ... As the producer, I want to sincerely apologize for the harm I have caused to the reputation of the university," Teng said.
Fudan University removed the video from its website and other social network platforms and uploaded a new one on Thursday, thepaper.cn reported.
However, some netizens suspected that the ending of the new video featuring students passing the badge of the university to others plagiarized a video of the Technical University of Munich.
"The dispute shows the indifference towards intellectual property and original works even in Chinese universities," Xiong Bingqi, a professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, told the Global Times.
Xiong added that it is improper for a university to be caught for plagiarism when it is actually supposed to cultivate talents.
