Forum - View topicNEWS: Japanese Government Expands Scope of Proposed Copyright Law Reforms
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XSp
Posts: 271 |
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I do partially agree with you on some of those terms, but I think this law is so far reaching and so overbearing that it won't have the effects they'd like it to have. And if we're talking about mass pirating, current laws suffice. What is really needed is for them to be applied. Piracy is already a crime, it's already illegal for people to distribute non authorized copies of manga and anime online, there's no need to implement yet another law on top that is too overbearing. It's an example of criminalize everything, punish mostly who is in the wrong too much, but also expect abusive and "civilian casualties" everytime a greedy company wants to make money by abusing the legal system. It's the route for a litigious country, which I don't think Japan really wants to be. To be clear: I think pirates that massively profit from stealing and redistributing tons of content are in the wrong, but at the same time, this has been happening over decades now, and the industry has shown no sign of this being unsustainable or this being a reason for everything to finish. It just hasn't. If it really was unsustainable, we'd be here talking about criminalizing everything so that we can ressurect manga and anime, which is simply not true. Both industries had meteoric rises in profitability and in growth in the past decade, don't buy into the illusion that they are somehow dying for the reasons you said. Risk of course will always be there, because their economy is based on trends and entertainment so it moves along with culture, but there is a far bigger safety net nowadays than there was in the 80s or 90s. One just cannot deny the fact that while decades ago we had half a dozen titles or so coming out every year, nowadays we have 4 times that coming out every month, and every year it seems this continues to increase. If the way things are done today were unsustainable, where are the signs of that? Of course the entertainment industries will keep crying out and whinning about some imaginary loss in profit that is so obviously not true (like making spurrious assumptions that every manga and anime pirated would be paid for), but the numbers and the statistics don't lie - manga and anime industry both have never been as profitable as they are today, along with Hollywood, the music industry and the gaming industry. People have got to stop feeling sorry for those when they are clearly at the high of their success. It's like listening to celebrities cry about not being able to eat foie gras everyday in one of their 6 billion dollar properties distributed in some of the biggest cities in the world. Piracy is often hijacked and used as an escapegoat for publishers, studios and whatnot to go bankrupt and close doors, but the vast majority of the times this is used it's just plain lies - they had some other reason to close doors, often mismanagement or even corruption. I have never seen a clear cut example of a business being closed solely due to piracy. Piracy is often the reason given, but you look just a bit more into the case and you quickly realize that it was clearly not that. The west has pretty much solved things by modernizing itself. Cheap online distribution that is convenient for costumers and charges a price that is more compatible for the reality of the market they are aiming for. I don't think it's nice to steal content from others and sell it for profit, I'm not in favor of exploiting the hard work of others, but some degree of resharing and some degree of talking about the stuff you are reading or watching has to be expected on the Internet - it is the nature of it. You can't just go ahead and criminalize reviews, talking about the stuff you like, all forms of fan activities and whatnot with the excuse of needing to stop piracy. A balance is always needed, and a perfect solution against piracy will never exist. But like I said, the problem with overbearing and ignorant laws like those is that they have a negative effect instead of solving the problem they are poised to, as proven by past attempts. Pirates that are going with big scale redistribution likely are already out of the country, if not they are going to. It won't solve the piracy problem internally in Japan, but much much less will solve the problem of piracy worldwide for japanese content, and can only punish people who were only affecting the industry positively. The effect inconsequential laws like those have can be very detrimental to the industry itself, which is something I don't want. I'm worried about unfair and unjust arrests, yes, but I'm mainly worried about the industry itself. You get more and more studios and whatnot dedicating time and money on litigation instead of producing works, you get less and less enthusiastic fanbase willing to share their thoughts on the works, you get an entire economy sustained by lawsuits and by going after people who just wanna share their love for a medium. Readers and reviewers who both make a living and just like talking about the anime and manga they like best will feel threatened by laws like those, stop doing what they do, which stops word of mouth marketing for tons of titles. I dunno about you, but I myself plus lots of friends I know got to know anime and manga which we buy and pay for in blogs, YouTube videos and other media on the Internet that would likely be in violation of this Copyright law. I am personally not affected as I don't live in Japan, but following the chain of distribution it will always come down to someone in Japan who wrote or made a review to talk about the stuff they love. I have spent tons and tons of money not only in anime and manga, but also figures, games related to anime, artbooks, and other related products because I got to know about several titles I follow through posts, articles and videos that would be criminalized by this law. What I think is really unsustainable is for legislators to keep making laws that harkens back to the past, arcaic mentality, at a time people are not relying on ads in newspapers and TV anymore to go after the content they want to consume. We had enough time to understand that laws like those just don't work, and they very often have a negative effects for the industry overall. Industries, corporations, and specially legislators and law firms will never recognize the transformative effect piracy had in worldwide culture. Several of the entertainment industries we have today would not have reached as many people they did if it wasn't for piracy. Manga and anime would not be the worldwide phenomena it is if it wasn't for piracy. Gaming wouldn't have flourished worldwide markets that are paying tons and tons of money for content these days if it wasn't for piracy. But of course they won't tell people these things, this will never be acknowledged, and studies will never be made because it goes against a traditional way of thinking where what is thought as wrong is wrong, and there is no way around it. Grey areas exists for a reason, and trying to make everything black or white will have consequences. But no one has to agree with me, just keep an eye on things. |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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Pointless, counterproductive, overreaching. So many adjectives.
There needs to be better laws for identifying and penalizing the source of piracy, not the fringe byproducts. This will accomplish nothing while making the politicians feel good for "doing something". That this mentality isn't just limited to Japan, more's the pity. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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Comparing this to nazis Germany is not going to fly. I suggest no one else go that route unless you also want your posts removed.
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2417 |
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Is it unsustainable? This seems to be working quite well for gaming both for Japanese developed games and Western developed games. A lot of 'free to play' games are making tons of money with a model that subsidizes free loaders while earning a profit from the subset of players who actually pay. |
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Black Turtle
 Posts: 110 |
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What it says is except big blockbuster that makes millions anyway, it mostly change nothing, because people that use piracy wouldn't pay anyway, either because they have can't afford them or consider the price to high for what it is. They just wouldn't watch/read/listen to them. It also showed that people have no problem to pay things like netflix, a fee for a lot of content. For videogames it was even beneficial (very little), since people were more prone to buy a game they already tried. So the idea that freeloaders hurt the industry is just false. They just wouldn't watch/read/listen to things if they weren't available. Piracy should still be fought, because stopping fighting it would only make things worse and really hurt the market, but as it is right now, it dosn't. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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So the conclusion stated here, which seems to be taken from the article itself, is betrayed by the actual language of the report, which they do quote in the article. First, $400K is not a lot of money for a research study. Research studies like these generally hit $1M easy. This is less than half of that. Second, it doesn't say that it changes nothing. The report says, "does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is the displacement of recent top films. The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally." This is significant because, as we all know, a movie makes the lion share of its profit in its initial run - those first few weeks it's available. This report says that is being impacted by around 40%. Third, the report itself bolsters the case for what media companies have been doing. It states, "This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users." So, while they do see some evidence that illegal downloads/streams leads to legal downloads/streams, they are saying that is most likely because of the very actions these media companies are being derided for. |
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NimbusRain
 Posts: 148 |
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Excuse me... WHAT!? They want to fine people for tweeting out song lyrics? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. |
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omiya
 Posts: 1849 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201902200054.html
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10015 Location: Virginia |
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Why is it ridiculous? Song lyrics are simply a form of written intellectual property. In terms of copyright, the only difference between a Harry Potter novel and the latest pop song is length. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13615 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I would imagine that simply copy and pasting some of the lyrics fall under the foreign equivalent of fair use (fair dealing). While I don't know the limit, I would think listing 2-3 lines worth of lines would be appropriate. The way I would make such a tweet would be something like the following: "The following lyrics are from the first 2 lines of [song name]. This is from [album name and the musician or band that made that album]. It was released by [record company or label]". |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10015 Location: Virginia |
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@Kadmos1
It has been noted several times here in the forums that Japan does not have a fair use clause. It is replaced by a sort of willful blindness in some situations such as Comiket. While I doubt that they would take any action over a few lines of a song (as opposed to the whole thing), part of the complaints about the law is that it is very vague at the time so no one knows what it means. |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13615 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Consider the following scenario: Suppose a manga-ka outright states something along the lines of "As long as you are not profiting from my work, do what you want with it", then piracy is not really an issue. Now, if the manga-ka states that while working with a manga publisher for digital and/or print editions, I could see there being an issue with that statement since the publisher has some rights over the works. The same might for anime production companies and merchandising companies. Now, in the off-chance the manga-ka and their assistants are the heads of that anime company and merchandising companies, that is their choice if they want to give their blessing for "authorized" scanlations. or fan-subs.
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