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NEWS: Japanese Government Expands Scope of Proposed Copyright Law Reforms


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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:44 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
The subcommittee acknowledged the difficulty in enforcing such laws, as they would target acts that are part of many people's daily lives


Have they considered that criminalizing something lots of people do on a regular basis, and that causes no direct harm to anyone, might not be a great idea...? Apparently not.

In practice I don't expect this to affect anything, because it seems the extent of anti-piracy policing in Japan is sometimes arresting people who used a specific file-sharing service, but I really wish authorities would quit going after silly things like this when there are real problems in the world that need solutions.
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Mavado



Joined: 17 Jul 2017
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:54 pm Reply with quote
How would they tell the difference between screenshots from pirated media and screenshots from legitimate sources?
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Hoppy800



Joined: 09 Aug 2013
Posts: 3331
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:55 pm Reply with quote
It won't do much (as most piracy sites aren't in Japan anymore). What a waste of time.
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Iron Maw



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 482
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:22 pm Reply with quote
Mavado wrote:
How would they tell the difference between screenshots from pirated media and screenshots from legitimate sources?


Took the words right out of my mouth. This heavy-handed approach sounds ripe for fuckery.
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XSp



Joined: 23 May 2014
Posts: 254
PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:23 pm Reply with quote
I dunno what is happening to the world now, with this, plus Article 11 and 13 in EU, it seems there is a concerted effort to basically destroy the Internet we have today.
Like I said previously in other protests that had to happen against overzealous and irresponsible proposals to appease copyright holders, like SOPA/PIPA and ACTA, this will lead nowhere, or end up extremely badly for the politicians and legislators who proposed and let something like this pass.

But if any of those ever happen, the most puzzling and amazing thing that leads me to believe this can only come from sheer irresponsible ignorance or plain malice, is that these sorts of laws will affect negatively not only the public in general, but also the ones that are proposing it and lobbying for it. Corporative copyright holders simply don't seem to understand the severity of consequences.

In a sense, I hope one of those end up passing just so that everyone has a concrete understanding of how damaging it can be. Because then, not even corrupt legislators, dumb ones with no understanding on how the Internet works, and others would ever consider doing something like this again.

Because they cannot see how connected things are today, and how passing far reaching and overburdening laws like these could have a domino effect in the entire economy of the country, which ends up empowering countries that are smart enough not to pass laws like those.This is literally handling power and money to other countries because they cannot and refuse to understand the modern Internet economy.

The ultimate destiny of countries that pass super litigious and extremely unbalanced laws towards copyright holders is that a whole ton of business, legal and illegal, that fears repercusions from these new laws, will move their businesses outside the country, but will keep operating as always.

See that I'm not even touching how marketing is done nowadays... this is only about how everything else is done. Marketing itself, for a huge part of the population, would be hugely hampered by a law like this one. Nowadays, word of mouth reigns king, and if you kill the ability for people to talk about the stuff they like in a modern fashion, you also kill the business itself. Laws cannot turn the clock back to how things were done in the past, and I say this as someone who has lived the pre-Internet era. There are just too many businesses and corporations highly dependant on how the Internet works today, so it`s easier to break up an entire country's economy than forcing people to suddently change their habits to something that is out of touch with today`s Internet economy.

The only way to block those services that migrated outside the country but is still offered online would be to put up a firewall blockade or to force ISPs to limit their services - which basically make you look like an authoritarian regime with closed off borders and full on censorship.

I find it super weird how people that are supposedly way smarter than me and occupying positions of power cannot or will not think this through enough. There are not enough jails, courts, judges, lawyers and manpower to basically sue everyone that participates in modern Internet culture, and it will always look awful for any company to go after multiple people who are just doing what they have always done for over a decade now. The bad PR would be catastrophic.
Nintendo has it bad enough when they go after some pretty legitimate worries for instance, ending up embroiled in series upon series of them damaging gaming culture in general by suing people who ultimately are preserving game history - which is only one side of the equation, but it still is.
Imagine if it decides to go after someone because he/she posted a photo of a TV playing an IP they own?

Ultimately, the question starts becoming that if this is the only thing legislators can do with their time, are they really worth keeping? If all you can do with taxpayer money is spend time caving in to demands of copyright holders and not attending any of the pressing public demands, why do people have to keep paying for that? Pay to shoot their own foot? Pay to unnecessarily put more people in jail, overburdening a system that is already overburdened, violating basic human rights, and giving all the money and power away to big copyright holders with big lobby firms, as if they needed or deserved more of that?

If this trend continues, things will get ugly. That's all I'm saying. It does not help that the ones probably behind these things are some of the most profitable industries in the world right now. Their hunger knows no limits, they will demand things 'till there is nothing left to be taken, and then we can all die as a species for failing to fight against that.
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deviljho0001



Joined: 01 Feb 2019
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:04 am Reply with quote
"Downloading anime images, illustrations, and photographs that have been illegally posted to personal blogs and Twitter accounts would also be illegal, as would copying and pasting song lyrics. The laws would not be limited to directly downloading images themselves — taking screenshots of illegally uploaded media would also be against the new laws."

funny they say this when they use western songs without permission on normal TV shows.
uh, Guess I'm going to prison for posting my favorite songs lyric on my blog
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Furuzaki



Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:27 am Reply with quote
Fans pay for legal copies. Criminals download. Their sales won't decrease for stopping criminals.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:35 am Reply with quote
@Furuzaki

I both download a lot, and I pay and I buy a lot.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:13 am Reply with quote
#815349 wrote:
See that I'm not even touching how marketing is done nowadays... this is only about how everything else is done. Marketing itself, for a huge part of the population, would be hugely hampered by a law like this one. Nowadays, word of mouth reigns king, and if you kill the ability for people to talk about the stuff they like in a modern fashion, you also kill the business itself. Laws cannot turn the clock back to how things were done in the past, and I say this as someone who has lived the pre-Internet era. There are just too many businesses and corporations highly dependent on how the Internet works today, so it`s easier to break up an entire country's economy than forcing people to suddenly change their habits to something that is out of touch with today`s Internet economy.
On some level, I'd hate to see "the Internet as we know it today" be radically changed or destroyed, but right now it's the Wild West; a lawless place with essentially no consequences for media piracy, from the kid who downloads a single illicit file to the criminal syndicates running for-profit bootleg streaming sites. I agree that this law is overreaching, but eventually, even the Wild (Wild) West got fenced in.

Are media businesses like anime really that dependent on "how the Internet works today"? It's unsustainable to have a giant mass of freeloaders subsidized by a small amount of paying customers who decide to pay for subscriptions or expensive discs out of loyalty/charity. (Or because they only watch on some device that the companies happened to make an app for, like the PlayStation 4.75 or the Nonfunctioning Roku Potato Of The Month.) Eventually, the inertia of "why should I pay for what they're getting for free?" takes over. And "word of mouth" marketing doesn't really help anyone but the for-profit pirates when it takes the form of "This show's awesome, here's a link to the free site where I watched it!"
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SWAnimefan



Joined: 10 Oct 2014
Posts: 634
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:35 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Wednesday's meeting saw further delineation of the scope of the proposed revisions. Downloading anime images, illustrations, and photographs that have been illegally posted to personal blogs and Twitter accounts would also be illegal, as would copying and pasting song lyrics. The laws would not be limited to directly downloading images themselves — taking screenshots of illegally uploaded media would also be against the new laws.


I hope their law is very specific, because I can see a lot of people getting in trouble with this. For instance, taking pictures of store promotions and showing social media, fans coloring their favorite scene from a manga, or a screen grab from an anime scene.

But I'm shocked about the law including musical lyrics. Someone has to fill me in, but how is copy and pasting musical lyrics that much of an issue? Isn't the artist more concerned of others making a profit off their song and not getting a cut from licensing? To me, this one is a bit excessive.


All in all, this appears to target fans more than actual pirates. Pirates still could scan manga or record anime, music and send it covertly to someone outside Japan. In the end, it makes Japanese lawmakers look bad.
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Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 629
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:51 am Reply with quote
kotomikun wrote:
Quote:
The subcommittee acknowledged the difficulty in enforcing such laws, as they would target acts that are part of many people's daily lives


Have they considered that criminalizing something lots of people do on a regular basis, and that causes no direct harm to anyone, might not be a great idea...? Apparently not.

In practice I don't expect this to affect anything, because it seems the extent of anti-piracy policing in Japan is sometimes arresting people who used a specific file-sharing service, but I really wish authorities would quit going after silly things like this when there are real problems in the world that need solutions.



Japan has one of the highest number of police to citizen ratio's of any nation while also having a low crime rate. As such making more things a criminal act is needed to give police something to do.

After all bored police in Japan do very silly things.

In one recent case, she says, they arrested a group of people who had shared the cost of renting a car, deeming the arrangement an illegal taxi.

Police in Hokkaido, in Japan’s sparsely populated north, conspired with yakuza gangsters to smuggle guns into the country so they could meet quotas for finding them.

https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-crime-dries-up-japans-police-hunt-for-things-to-do
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Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 629
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:54 am Reply with quote
Furuzaki wrote:


Fans pay for legal copies. Criminals download. Their sales won't decrease for stopping criminals.



It's been proven time and time again the biggest pirates are also the biggest customers.

People who don't care to see things as soon as possible by pirating also don't care about owning legal copies or seeing films in the cinema.
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 659
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:11 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Downloading anime images, illustrations, and photographs that have been illegally posted to personal blogs and Twitter accounts would also be illegal, as would copying and pasting song lyrics. The laws would not be limited to directly downloading images themselves — taking screenshots of illegally uploaded media would also be against the new laws.

I see what they’re trying to go for, but this isn’t gonna accomplish much. People will still do these things anyway. You can’t stop them.
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Shaddy_Pl



Joined: 18 Nov 2015
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:26 am Reply with quote
Furuzaki wrote:

Fans pay for legal copies. Criminals download. Their sales won't decrease for stopping criminals.


Every manga I have on my shelf I bought, after reading chapters online. Withoud that I would never spend money on something not worthy. For me online scans are like preview, to see if title is good or bad. Some titles starts good, and then they got worse and worse.
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Phraze



Joined: 11 Jun 2012
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:33 am Reply with quote
This looks like an attempt to penalize certain actions on sight, since it'll become a matter of suing if there's no crime tag attached. The idol market has been running on similar terms, what with the partial MVs on YouTube. I hope this give rise to the popularity of legal streaming/reading sites, like LINE Webtoons. In fact, I might switch over to the legal routes while waiting. Prefer the free internet, but I guess the future is this (along with Article 13).
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