Forum - View topicThe Law of Anime Part I: Copyright and the Anime Fan
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amagee
 Posts: 333 Location: Orlando, FL |
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I'm curious about a situation I have personally dealt with (and likely some others here):
A friend purchased me a Black Rock Shooter wall-scroll as a gift at a convention. I know that the particular wall-scroll is merely a piece of fan-art taken from PIVIX, printed, and sold at conventions. I was just wondering if, for example, I - who knew it infringed on copyright - could theoretically be liable for litigation by accepting it as a gift? Alternatively, would my pal that got it - who thought it was official merchandise - be liable himself? Not that I'm concerned that someone will ever sue me over this; I'm just curious about my particular situation. On a totally unrelated note, I was curious as to what may have drawn you to anime/manga/game law in the first place? Was it merely a random result of copyright and trademark work or did you pursue this particular area? Also, in case you do watch anime/read manga, do you have any favorites? |
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nadir-seen-fire
 Posts: 90 |
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Yeah, the article's description of Creative Commons is blatantly wrong. Though your description is actually off too. Firstly there is no singular "The Creative Commons License". "Creative Commons" itself is a nonprofit organization. Besides some other stuff they do, the Creative Commons organization writes the legal text for a series of multiple licenses that authors can use to license stuff they create to other people. Besides CC0, there are 6 different licenses that Creative Commons provides: "CC BY" (Creative Commons Attribution), "CC BY-SA" (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike), "CC BY-ND" (Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs), "CC BY-NC" (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial), "CC BY-NC-SA" (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike), and "CC BY-NC-ND" (Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-NoDerivs). There are multiple versions of each (Creative Commons periodically improves the legal text for the licences and releases new versions of the). The current being version 3.0 of the licenses. And they also have variations indicating what Country's laws govern the work. The licenses have small differences between them that let authors choose what limited set of restrictions they want to place on the work. All 6 of those CC licences require that the author of the work be attributed. The ND (NoDerivs) licenses restrict the ability to create derivative works based on the work. The SA (ShareAlike) licenses require that any derivative work be licensed with the same license. And the NC (NonCommercial) licenses restrict commercial distribution and derivatives of the work. Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They are copyright licenses that use copyright. Just like many other licenses are. Licences are usually governed by the same contract law that contracts are governed by. CC licenses also aren't the only licenses. There's a variety of other licenses with different restrictions, different purposes, and legal text for different mediums (for example there are various differences between software code and the text of a book that require differences in the legal text used to license them out, so there are different licenses for different types of works). Some others being the various forms of the GNU GPL (GNU General Public License), GNU GFDL (GNU General Free Document License", the FAL (Free Art License), and so on. And there is nothing dubious about them. They are perfectly valid licenses to apply to works and many of them have been recognized and applied in multiple court cases. As for those podcasts. Some of them may use various Creative Commons licenses. But note that the part about not being able to sell only applies if the author of the podcast chose to use one of the NonCommercial licenses. Restrictions on sale are not inherent to all CC licenses. And lastly creativecommons.org is not a website where people place things they create for others to use. There is no registration involved in using a CC license. You could still use one of the CC licenses without involving the website at all. The website is the Creative Commons organization's website. Besides providing news, information, etc... about things relevant to Creative Commons. CC's website provides a tool that simply makes it easy for authors to choose between the available licenses and provides them with the images, text, markup, etc... needed to apply the license to any work that they create. |
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dengart
Posts: 16 |
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The cosplay explanation could use some fleshing out, as costumes aren't always copyrightable, compare Jovani Fashion Ltd. v. Fiesta Fashions, Ltd., Case No. 12-598 (2d Cir. Oct. 15,2012) with Chosun Int’l, Inc. v. Chrisha Creations, Ltd., 413 F.3d 324 (2d Cir. 2005), 2nd Circuit in Jovani stated:
"We have construed 17 U.S.C. § 101 to afford protection to design elements of clothing only when those elements, individually or together, are separable—'physically or conceptually'—from the garment itself. Chosun Int'l, Inc. v. Chrisha Creations, Ltd., 413 F.3d 324, 328 (2d Cir. 2005). Physical separability can be shown where one or more decorative elements "can actually be removed from the original item and separately sold, without adversely impacting the article's functionality." THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON LAW AND FACTS. ALL LEGAL ISSUES ARE DISCUSSED ARE EXPRESSLY NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF HANDLING SPECIFIC CASES AND THE LAW MUST BE INDEPENDENTLY RESEARCHED. THERE ARE THOSE THAT MAY HAVE OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS. THE INFORMATION HEREIN IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. AN ATTORNEY SHOULD BE CONSULTED IF YOU DESIRE LEGAL ADVICE. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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If y'all are going to be really shitty, dismissive and condescending while "correcting" the article, have you considered just being helpful and adding to the knowledge base? You know, trying to help educate people about these issues, maybe giving us your credentials, the law offices you work for, maybe your actual names so we know we can trust the information you're giving us? Like the author of the column did?
These articles are being published in the spirit of education. It doesn't have to be this stupid dick-waving contest. Maybe be helpful and positive. Surely that concept isn't alien to you. |
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dengart
Posts: 16 |
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Not sure who the preceding comment was directed at, but I apologize if my comment was condescending.
My only point was that in some situations costumes may not be copyrightable, for example, if the design elements can't be separated from the clothing and separately sold. I tried to give case examples so that people could see for themselves what the courts have said about the issue, and verify if they feel what I'm saying is accurate, rather than having them rely on my word. |
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getchman
 Space CowboyPosts: 9120 Location: Bedford, NH |
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Lord Skeletor has spoken
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la_contessa
Posts: 200 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Um, are you talking to me? I tried very hard to make it clear that I liked the articles, and thought they were helpful, and that I just wanted to talk to another lawyer about laws that I actually care about for a change, instead of things that bore me, which is what I mostly do at work. I hope it doesn't come off as condescending, I tried to make it conversational. (ANN has my name and credentials already, from previous emails. My name is not linked in public to this particular handle) |
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belvadeer
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HitokiriShadow and willag, I said almost. I was being sarcastic. I am well aware of the crap storm that would ensue if they actually outright sued cosplayers for something that miniscule.
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S.Thordsen
 Posts: 15 Location: Santa Ana, CA |
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1) As I stated before with another poster, I'm not going to get into specific situations as that becomes a difficult as I have to walk a fine line between offering education and offering actual legal advice. However, as stated with fanart, it is the act of selling the materials that the original copyright holder would likely find fault with as this infringes on their rights and the seller of fanart is making a profit. Now, if someone were to instead be trading items then there is an arguable profit as you are exchanging materials that could be seen as deriving a profit (though this gets heavily into contract law). 2) I've been a fan of anime since back when the Sci-fi channel used to run anime on the weekends. Additionally I used to be the president of my high school's anime club so I have a long history of enjoying the Japanese animation (fun fact, I randomly caught Tenchi Muyo in Love on sci-fi years ago and thought somebody made an animated series for Chrono Trigger). As to the legal scope, I've been a long time follower of case law and legislation in the anime and video game industries so I've been expanding my knowledge base ever since college. I took courses in entertainment law back in law school and discovered I had a knack for intellectual property and entertainment fields so I've been honing that ever since including regularly attending trade shows and seminars on the subject. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwVDNeFswY - that's a link to the tax benefits panel I spoke on at SMU last year, though the subject matter isn't directly relevant here. Since in the legal profession I've helped people with books, animated series, manga and video games (a few of which have been featured on Kotaku when their project finally hit kickstarter). 3) Cowboy Bebop remains my favorite ever since it aired and remains as such to this day - followed closely by Giant Robo and Gankutsuou. Manga my favorites are Blade of the Immortal and Berserk.
I don't mean for the above quote to look condescending but I'm trying to conserve some space and unruly long quote boxes are a pet peeve of mine. The Creative Commons is a sticky business since it is not a government issued license and its various types of contracts differ radically. But getting into that quickly becomes a contract issue which would have derailed the post substantially. Just so you are aware, some of these subjects I wrote on were once much longer but were cut down for several reasons including brevity and clarity. The creative commons was a section that was shortened as a result of this. Cosplay was the same, frankly I could have written a whole article on each of the fan base sections but I tried to create a balance of each without making these articles much longer than they needed to be.
The articles as I've written them so far are largely to provide a brief education on the subject matter as a courtesy to fans. Getting into the ethics and future of the law is difficult for although there are trends to the law one can never truly predict where it will lead us. The two trends I've actually been following very closely right now are copyright trolling and the length of the copyright (which will be up for review in the not too distant future). |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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What I would be most interested in is a comparison and contrast between copyright law in the US and Japan and its practical application, as I've recently been researching it and there are really quite significant legal differences.
Most especially when it comes to statute mandated royalties and entire different concepts of market value of a product... |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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As far as the audio side for AMVs are concerned, youtube has a program offering songs for use in videos. Nine Inch Nails also offers songs, through youtube and via a Creative Commons license. If you don't want to go mainstream pop/commercial, there are CC-licensed songs as well as proprietary licensing programs. This publisher also participates in youtube's program and carries "podsafe" songs (example, youtube channel), where your purchase automatically includes a license for noncommercial video usage. Vimeo has a program for soundtracks and in general, there are royalty-free soundtracks and soundtrack stems and loops for unlimited distribution, if you're not looking for songs with lyrics. You can find many indie artists that are very accomodating for fanstuff. Mostly on soundcloud, bandcamp, newgrouds, such as F-777 and Mizuki's Last Chance (explicit CC-license for their original works)
It doesn't happen frequently, but it still happens. That company making costumes similar to (but not exactly) power rangers, recently. And Square/Enix did not too long ago for example. Technically, they also have the legal right to sue all fans publicly cosplaying or distributing cosplay images as well |
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DmonHiro
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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?
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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That's trademark, not copyright, which are 2 very different things. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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With regards to DRM circumvention in the DMCA, aside from the fact that it's completely unethical (like most laws), as far as I understand, it does NOT criminalize the breaking of DRM by individuals themselves i.e. hacking your player, but the distribution of the tools. Furthermore, the source code is publishable and fortunately other countries do not honor such nonsense.
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FMABleach
Posts: 91 |
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Thanks for your informative articles.
 It was very educational. I hope that the article clears up any questions or concerns people have about this stuff.
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