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The Law of Anime Part I: Copyright and the Anime Fan

Cosplay that doesn't make money, AMV's that aren't sold, fansubs that are just put on youtube, are mostly tolerated. Start making stuff to sell, and do it on a scale that gets noticed, and the owners will take action.

Chagen46 wrote:

I have to say that even if fansubs are illegal, the fact is, you're not really affecting the owners of the show if you get them before the show is on disc, because the Japanese fans are also watching it for free. So, fansubs really aren't that bad.

But Japanese people are also watching the commercials (we won't get into the whole DVR issue, which is also something that American broadcasters can relate to) that help fund the "free" broadcast on TV.

But Japanese people are also watching the commercials (we won't get into the whole DVR issue, which is also something that American broadcasters can relate to) that help fund the "free" broadcast on TV.

The production companies actually PAY the stations to host the show as an advertisement for the discs (which makes me wonder why the companies don't just use online streaming--it's probably cheaper and more efficient than awkwardly putting it on the air at goddamn 1 in the morning).

But anime fans in Japan are always online all the time, given the popularity of 2chan. You telling me that they can't just spread shit the good old word of mouth way? It's how us American fans do it, and we don't have easy access to the original promotions/articles.

Polycell wrote:

Chagen46 wrote: I assume that man has never actually created anything in his whole life. If he did, he would've seen just intellectual property existed. One has nothing to do with the other; Mozart certainly had no such protection and did pretty well without it.

Mozart did pretty well?! Sure, for a time he did well, but in his later years he had to beg friends for money despite the growing success of his works and Operas.
Because he couldn't get any money for just a performance of his work, only for his own appearance or composition...
He's a perfect COUNTER example, if anything. He was forced to continue composing and performing right up until the end of his life to keep his finances in check.

I found this article amusing as I am currently reading Rob Reid's Year Zero which makes the asumption that mankind is the best species in existence when it comes to making music, and that, ever since Welcome Back Kotter aired, alien species have been engaging in music piracy since then. In short, two beings representing the rest of the alien species arrives on earth and, after selecting a lawyer because they thought he was a former Backstreet Boy, inform him that thanks to mankind's "Copyright Damages Improvement Act", they might owe a lot of money....and the only way to rectify that paying all that money, is to simply wipe us out.

It must be problematic for you that many 'pirating' sites host their material on servers located in countries that either do not care about piracy, or actively engage in it. I can only imagine the money that was involved in just legal fees alone in trying to get Mega to shut down, and I'd imagine that a smaller, but still far-too-much-for-most-anime-companies-to-pay, amount would be involved in shutting down other sites. It seems to me that, perhaps instead of fighting against the sharing of these forms of entertainment, that it would be best to allow people, worldwide, to view and share music within 24 hours of its release on a legitimate site where advertising revenue can be collected. Not that I'm trying to justify piracy, but, some money, even if it is pennies per visitor, is a lot better than no money.

Quote:

Code Geass: Akito the Exiled is a prime example of a derivative work; it does not star any of the original characters and merely occurs within the established universe and canon which is Code Geass. Thus a derivative work can be anything using the original characters or placed in an existing universe.

Not that it really matters, but Code Geass: Akito the Exiled does actually have two of the original characters from Code Geass. Both Suzaku and C.C. are confirmed to be involved in the second episode.

Chagen46 wrote:

I have to say that even if fansubs are illegal, the fact is, you're not really affecting the owners of the show if you get them before the show is on disc, because the Japanese fans are also watching it for free. So, fansubs really aren't that bad.

But Japanese people are also watching the commercials (we won't get into the whole DVR issue, which is also something that American broadcasters can relate to) that help fund the "free" broadcast on TV.

Even if works make in Japan weren't automatically protected by US Copyright, the companies that make this stuff in Japan all have ties to representative agencies and other similar companies who try to resell their IP in the US. Most of them are far from household names. Afterall, they're basically middlemen peddling a catalog of titles. But those rep agents do hold effective ownership of the IP rights as they shop it around to the names people do know.

The point is, these agents own the US licences long before a name like Funimation gets ahold of it. There is no grace period "until somebody licenses something" where it's OK to torrent or distribute copies. The law says no. That's one thing. But in fact, nearly everything is bulk licensed for North America and other territories as soon as it's made, even if it never actually becomes a retail product.

The licence acquisitions we read about are almost always when the license has been resold, not when it was created.

DmonHiro wrote:

This seems like a good place to ask. I've heard that if the Copyright holders don't enforce it, they might loose it. Is that true?

That's trademark, not copyright, which are 2 very different things.

Does performances also include covers of songs from anime? For example if I posted a video of myself playing a background song from the OST on guitar on youtube, does that infringe?