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


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Wetall



Joined: 20 May 2009
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:26 am Reply with quote
Getting an independent lawyer to give a professional analysis pertaining to controversial issues in anime? You know, an objective look by someone who's not affected by sensationalism, nor possesses any sort of stake in these issues?

Holy shit, dude. I suggested that you guys do this with regards to the Christopher Handley case over two years ago. I applaud you for giving this treatment to the issue of copyrights and anime, but I really, really, REALLY wish you could've done something similar while that case was still in the spotlight. Instead, we got article after article made up of pure sensationalistic crap from "sources" like the CBLDF and provoked the whole damned industry to get into a huge panic attack.

A little too late, I guess. Rolling Eyes
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Ryujin99



Joined: 21 Jul 2010
Posts: 185
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:04 am Reply with quote
Very informative articles; I just read both of them. It's really opened my eyes a bit in regards to copyright issues.

I can say that I certainly did have some misconceptions about copyright, from what I can see. For instance, I wasn't really sure about the legality of things such as AMVs and Fanart/Doujinshi, so that section was particularly enlightening.

As one who feels like I have a bit of a creative spark, I've been working on some original creations and a lot of the information in the first article was really helpful. I always kind of thought of copyright as some big, scary, unapproachable thing that would be completely beyond the scope of anything I'd ever be able to manage. But I guess that actually isn't really the case. Of course I'm sure there are plenty of other details involved in such a pursuit, such as forming contracts for distribution, production, etc. if I ever make anything worth selling.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10419
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:21 am Reply with quote
Wetall wrote:
Holy shit, dude. I suggested that you guys do this with regards to the Christopher Handley case over two years ago.

A little too late, I guess. Rolling Eyes


I tried really hard to get someone to do it for Handley, but it's not every day that a lawyer offers to spend a dozen hours working on an article that ANN can afford.

On the Handley case, most lawyers said, "I'm sorry, I don't want to do this," or "You'll have to pay me by the hour" (Yay, a $3000 article). Finally one agreed to do it, but then had an unexpected workload increase...

-t
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omoikane



Joined: 03 Oct 2005
Posts: 494
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:27 am Reply with quote
penguintruth wrote:
No, I get it. I was just joking. Probably looks good on a document, though. I'm jealous of anyone with actual expertise.

This is actually sometimes governed by professional ethics law. If he is going to dispense legal info advertised as legal info in a mass media sort of context then he needs to be held responsible for that. The Esq is a handy short hand to help with it.
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catbert



Joined: 15 Feb 2009
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:35 am Reply with quote
I encourage everybody to watch the video series Everything Is a Remix by Filmmaker Kirby Ferguson to shed light on how the creative process functions and that creative works cannot be created without borrowing and building on what has been done in the past.

Kirby Ferguson has spoken at TED, Google, Netflix, and many conferences.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:39 am Reply with quote
Surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot in this article I wasn't already aware of. Amazing how much you learn just watching people debate about fansubs. Laughing

But there's one aspect of copyright on anime I've never found a good answer for. Obviously the video of fansubs is illegal, but what about the translation? I have heard that a translator has a common-law copyright on any translation they do regardless of whether they have a license to use the source material, but I think that sounds a little lax. A translation of the script for an anime episode (just the text) is mostly useless without a copy of the video (which you could obtain legally) but a full translation of say, the latest Haruhi light novel could obviously affect sales.
I translate anime lyrics as a hobby, and I while I certainly am not expecting a cease-and-desist, I've always wondered what rights I have over my translations, especially in cases where they have been ripped off.
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Bored_Ming



Joined: 17 Jun 2009
Posts: 242
Location: The Edge of ......
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:39 am Reply with quote
Thanks Zac and Sean for the articles they were very informative and I enjoyed reading them. Combined with Justin's Anime Economy articles it really gives folks the ability to hold intelligent conversations on the various issues affecting anime today.

No guarantee that these conversations will occur on the internet Wink
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 12:14 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
Surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot in this article I wasn't already aware of. Amazing how much you learn just watching people debate about fansubs. Laughing

But there's one aspect of copyright on anime I've never found a good answer for. Obviously the video of fansubs is illegal, but what about the translation? I have heard that a translator has a common-law copyright on any translation they do regardless of whether they have a license to use the source material, but I think that sounds a little lax. A translation of the script for an anime episode (just the text) is mostly useless without a copy of the video (which you could obtain legally) but a full translation of say, the latest Haruhi light novel could obviously affect sales.
I translate anime lyrics as a hobby, and I while I certainly am not expecting a cease-and-desist, I've always wondered what rights I have over my translations, especially in cases where they have been ripped off.

For translations, you usually have a shared copyright by default: the translation is copyrighted both by the translator and the owner of the copyright on the original work.
In most cases for professional translation work for anime the translator signs over their rights to the translation to the client as part of their contract, however for translations of novels it sometimes happens they keep the copyright and get a percentage of royalties on the sales.
For translations made without the original consent of the copyright holder, I believe the law in Japan and the US is different.
In Japan that translation was not approved by the original work's owner and therefore the translator holds no rights to it whatsoever.
Derivative works created without explicit permission cannot be sold traded or distributed in any legal way to my knowledge. If someone took your translation you produced without consent, you have no rights to sue them as you had no right to that translation in the first place.
In the US I'm not as sure about it, I think there might be more of a case there as I think derivative works for non-business purposes might be copyrightable even without consent of the original content owner, the common law copyright you mentioned, but it's a murky argument at best.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 12:40 pm Reply with quote
Wetall wrote:
Getting an independent lawyer to give a professional analysis pertaining to controversial issues in anime? You know, an objective look by someone who's not affected by sensationalism, nor possesses any sort of stake in these issues?

Holy shit, dude. I suggested that you guys do this with regards to the Christopher Handley case over two years ago. I applaud you for giving this treatment to the issue of copyrights and anime, but I really, really, REALLY wish you could've done something similar while that case was still in the spotlight. Instead, we got article after article made up of pure sensationalistic crap from "sources" like the CBLDF and provoked the whole damned industry to get into a huge panic attack.

A little too late, I guess. Rolling Eyes

How is the CBLDF sensationalistic when their lawyers were involved? In fact the CBLDF managed to convince a federal judge to strike down a section of the law that would've made for easier convictions, to narrow it down to rely on obscenity (although in practice it doesn't matter much). Did you know there have been a few other cases since then? Both under the law Handley was charged with, and other obscenity based laws. Two people were sentenced to 3 years and 4 years, just last month!
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S.Thordsen



Joined: 15 Feb 2013
Posts: 15
Location: Santa Ana, CA
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 1:13 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
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.


This is correct, trademarks can be lost under two very easy circumstances (there are other ways but these two can happen passivly)

1) You don't take time to protect your trademark. So suing on it or contacting infringers becomes important otherwise it can become abandoned.

2) If it becomes synonymous with the product - Kleenex has run into this problem because when people say Kleenex they don't often mean kleenex brand but rather a tissue. Though I suspect google may run into this problem in the future should everyone keep using the term google it and not actually mean google.


Copyrights it's similar only in principal. Basically they will enforce it to show that they will otherwise they risk everybody assuming that they're ok with other parties using their copyright, but there is nothing mandating them to do so.



I'll get to other questions later today as I have an appointment I have to make so please bear with me.
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Lyrai



Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 173
Location: Potatoes (Idaho)
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:03 pm Reply with quote
This is the sort of thing I love. The dirty, messy, details behind all the stuff we see. I love this article and hope to hear more.

And to the author himself, I love that you chose Godot for your avatar.
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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:11 pm Reply with quote
So at least on the surface, it sounds like the main takeaway is we'd all be in jail and/or broke if it weren't for pragmatism.

Tempest wrote:
On the Handley case, most lawyers said, "I'm sorry, I don't want to do this," or "You'll have to pay me by the hour" (Yay, a $3000 article). Finally one agreed to do it, but then had an unexpected workload increase...


Unfortunate, but understandable. Those billable hours, man.
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la_contessa



Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 200
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:45 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
rizuchan wrote:
But there's one aspect of copyright on anime I've never found a good answer for. Obviously the video of fansubs is illegal, but what about the translation? I have heard that a translator has a common-law copyright on any translation they do regardless of whether they have a license to use the source material, but I think that sounds a little lax. A translation of the script for an anime episode (just the text) is mostly useless without a copy of the video (which you could obtain legally) but a full translation of say, the latest Haruhi light novel could obviously affect sales.


For translations, you usually have a shared copyright by default: the translation is copyrighted both by the translator and the owner of the copyright on the original work.
In most cases for professional translation work for anime the translator signs over their rights to the translation to the client as part of their contract, however for translations of novels it sometimes happens they keep the copyright and get a percentage of royalties on the sales.
For translations made without the original consent of the copyright holder, I believe the law in Japan and the US is different.
In Japan that translation was not approved by the original work's owner and therefore the translator holds no rights to it whatsoever.
Derivative works created without explicit permission cannot be sold traded or distributed in any legal way to my knowledge. If someone took your translation you produced without consent, you have no rights to sue them as you had no right to that translation in the first place.
In the US I'm not as sure about it, I think there might be more of a case there as I think derivative works for non-business purposes might be copyrightable even without consent of the original content owner, the common law copyright you mentioned, but it's a murky argument at best.


In the US, if the derivative work (the translation) is not authorized, the translator has NO copyright in the finished product (17 USC 103(a) says "protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully"). If the derivative work is authorized, the translator would have a copyright in only the part s/he added (the translation).

(not legal advice, just a summary of the law--talk to a lawyer if you have questions about your specific situation)
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kedie



Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:18 pm Reply with quote
so..........basically fans can't do ANYTHING huh? that's what I'm getting out of this article..
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Kaizaman



Joined: 30 Dec 2012
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:58 pm Reply with quote
A really informative and interesting article.
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