What Lawyers Can Learn From Manga 357
jedigeek links to this article from Lawrence Lessig, writing "This article explains the interesting phenomenon of dojinshi, and why dojinshi helps fuel the production of original manga. From a western-perspective, dojinshi breaks copyright laws, but, according to the article's author: 'The law is a rough-edged tool. It was not crafted by geniuses of economics.' In a time when laws like the DMCA exist and are being exploited, this is certainly food for thought."
Preaching to the choir (Score:3, Insightful)
Better yet, write something ORIGINAL!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Pfft... Lawyers need money too... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's how they get themselves paid.
Why would they want anything else? They coach their clients strongly to persue every available legal option by using the tried and true "scare tactic" marketing technique: "If you DON'T sue them, think what the NEXT person might do - you don't want your product to get away from you!".
Lies, Damn Lies, and Freakin' Lies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or doues this sound like the definition of business for it's own sake? I realize the business of business is to make profit, but that statement make it sound as if the law is a secondary concern, an inconvinience that need be followed only if you're in a good mood.
And of course the law is a rough edged tool when viewed upon from a purely business stand point. That's because most laws aren't designed with only business in mind. There are these things called "people" too...
Oh, and didn't they know that purging the world of copywrite violations creates business too? Maybe they should have had somebody else write this piece...
Great Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Management should begin to demand a business justification for copyright litigation. How does this legal action advance the bottom line? How will it grow markets or increase consumer demand for our products? Will calling our customers criminals increase consumer loyalty?
If only more executives would ask these questions. Few businesses have realized the true power of fans and fan or user created content. Just look at the classic example of Half Life and Counter Strike. Where did these ideas that copyright law trumps the copyright holder's profits come from anyway?
Grow up. Seriously. (Score:2, Insightful)
The article has nothing to do with that. It is about how "borrowing" copyrighted characters for non-authorized purposes is not necessarily bad. So take your hentai debates somewhere else.
Fine Line (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, in Japan, creating works based on someone's creations is considered flattery towards the creator. Sounds good to me - I'd be pretty happy if someone thought enough of my work to want to make works derived from it.
Bear in mind, though, that there is a very fine line between flattery and profiteering off someone elses hard work...
Re:So "Dojinshi" is....? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawyers Won't Learn this Lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anime originality (Score:5, Insightful)
Originality is one of the rarest things around. We've all been exposed to so many different stories, movies, etc that there's really not much we haven't seen. If one in 10,000 artists actually does something original, how do you propose to build an economy off of that?
Good reasoning.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I'm a little surprised Sony (of all places) doesn't understand this concept. It would be hard to argue that one of Quake n's most appetizing features was the mods available to it. Though ID didn't make money off the mods themselves, it helped make sure that many many MANY copies of Quake were sold. Sony, with its game division, should be eyeballing Id more carefully than that.
Re:Pfft... Lawyers need money too... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is called their ethical duty. Because otherwise, the business person will sue their lawyer for malpractice when one of the "next persons" actually does something bad to them.
You misunderstand the point of law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or does this sound like the definition of business for it's own sake? I realize the business of business is to make profit, but that statement make it sound as if the law is a secondary concern, an inconvinience that need be followed only if you're in a good mood.
Lessig is NOT arguing that businesses should break the law, he's arguing that content holders should recognize when it is in their best interest to enforce their "legal rights" and when it's best to just let it pass.
If my rights are violated, I can CHOOSE whether or not to press charges. If I choose not to, then there's nothing stopping anyone from violating those rights, especially if I make my intentions public. If I decide that certain rights aren't worth defending, or as Lessig points out are actually more profitable to me if I allow them to be "violated," then no one else can come in and tell me I must defend myself. In general it's not a smart idea to give away your rights, but perhaps Lessig has a point here that some laws and rights don't always protect they way you want them to and in fact you'd be better off not enforcing them.
In practice this may happen more often than you think. Sometimes it's not worth the trouble hauling someone into court when you can deal with it person to person. Even the GPL itself "gives away" rights the law gives to copyright holders. In this case, such free software advocates feel the loss of traditional copyright privileges is outweighed by the gains of free-as-in-speech software.
Re:Anime originality (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like the entertainment economy that's doing very well today?
"Does it occur to you guys that most of the stories worth telling have already been told?"
Did it occur to you that there's a lot more to content than getting from act I to act IV?
Was the interesting part about Ghostbusters the way they defeated Zuul, or was the interesting part about it watching these 3 guys (eventually 4) start an unusual business?
I swear, people ridiculously over-value plot.
Re:translation please? (Score:3, Insightful)
it's that simple.
really.
Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Freakin' Lies. (Score:2, Insightful)
A perfect case of ill advised copyright defense was when NBC systematically destroyed the online fan base of "Late Night with Conan O'Brian" by sending Cease and Desist letters to many fan sites. Sure, they were within there legal rights to force the removal of NBC copyrighted material, mostly pictures and logos, but the bad will they generated far out weighed the value of the material defended.
Exactly right - mod parent up. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all about being a tool of the law, vs. using the law as a tool. I guess that's the short summary I was trying to arrive at before.
As for Sony... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm posting anonymously because I happen to work at Sony Electronics. Let me put it this way: Sony is big. Sony is REAL big. There are people in Sony who love open source and all that jazz. There are others who have no idea what that means.
Sony is also in a difficult position. It is one of the few (only?) companies that both produces content (Sony Music, Sony Films) and the technology to play it on (Sony Electronics). So there are competing forces within Sony itself. A win for the content people sometimes means a loss for the tech people. And the way Sony is structured means that these divisions are essentially autonomous. Only in the very upper levels do they come under one roof, so often there isn't a lot of effort to really try to work together beyond simply promoting a common brand image.
I often see a lot of grumbling about Sony here on Slashdot, but honestly, I like the company. I think Sony has the resources and position to do things right. At least that's my hope. And somedays I perhaps I don't like everything about the place, but that's just it -- corporations are big and you have to take the good with the bad. Even Microsoft I'm sure has some very well meaning intelligent people somewhere in there.
DISCLAIMER: the above comment expresses only the views of the author and does not in any way express the views of Sony Electronics or any of its associates.
Unfair comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The law (Score:4, Insightful)
Before technology made that theoretically possible, having elected representatives was probably supposed to get as close to that as practically possible. Of course there would need to be VERY strong community stability controls to prevent the law swinging wildy with fads. Even something as simple as a slashdot discussion has layers of moderation and meta-moderation, and you still get a ton of junk posts just because they can. Something like the Linux kernel depends on a trusted dictator, which is works when you can have many different software implementations and ignore all but the effective ones. We can't afford to allow that with laws, we have to pick ONE right law for everyone before implementation.
Today, I think the biggest barrier to progress towards the community ideal is that in America campaign contribution money can apparently override logic via blitz advertising for votes. That effectively breaks "one man, one vote". I'm not an American nor do I live in America so I can't directly participate in that process, but it still affects me at home because those policies are exported via political pressure on other countries.
DMCA-like policy is only one of a number of unpopular policies that are being pushed on legislatures worldwide by corporate lobbying. In most countries corporations don't have as much influence over politics, so more and more internationally we are seeing government-to-government pressure from American politicians who are apparently legally allowed to owe big contributors big favors.
Maybe American campaign finance reform is the way to break that barrier down, make American individuals votes count more than dollars again, and other individuals in their own countries too.
Where I live, political campaigning by individual politicians is limited to 6 weeks before the election and must stop the day before the election. Individual electorate politicians have a campaign budget limited to merely thousands of dollars, enough for volunteers to put up posters and local some local media advertising but not enough to blitz the mass media. Penalties for exceeding this spending limit go beyond removal of that individual from office. The budgets for political parties are not as limited, but any party that can prove signed up membership of more than a certain number of people can get government contribution towards equal TV advertising time. This means that campaign money is not essential to a party getting a message publicised. No guarantee people will watch, but still a better chance.
Not having to listen to a two-year run-up to every four-yearly election is one of the minor benefits of fairer campaign finance, the major one is that people's votes would count for more in making the law.
Re:Better yet, write something ORIGINAL!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Problem is..Lawyers CAN'T learn! (Score:3, Insightful)
But what they can't tell you is if you should be suing. See, they have a vested interest, they're selling their services and if you don't sue, you don't need their services as much.
The article's solution is right... the business people have to consider whether or not to take legal action as a business decision before a lawsuit can go forward.
Yeah but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody seems to think of their company as a going concern... a business that's still going to be here next week, next month, or next year. Something that costs you a dollar today but gets you back 25 cents a year for each of the next ten years is usually a good deal, isn't it?
but ignoring (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Lessig is NOT your friend (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr. Lessig's day job [stanford.edu]: Teaching "Constitutional Law" and "Law and Virtual Worlds" courses at Stanford University.
What we see here is a relationship between a law professor, the law, the Constitution, and virtual worlds. Since the law, the Constitution, and virtual worlds all came into existence, and are perpetuated, independently of Mr. Lessig, it seems clear that the purpose of Mr. Lessig as a law professor can only be understood in terms of its relationship to these things, and that he is not autotelic at all.
I could argue that perhaps Mr. Lessig has created the field of "Law and Virtual Worlds" specifically in order to perpetuate his own existence as a law professor, but I'd have to disregard the fact that virtual worlds, the law, and the intersection of the two, exists independently of his own existence as a law professor. Even if Lessig is one of the first to enter this field, we already have a word for that: pioneer. And when the pioneer has created the field which he then enters, we often use the term "genius". If Lessig is truly autotelic (which seems unlikely), then he is in good company, along with Jonas Salk, Neils Bohr, and Alan Turing, among others.
And why shouldn't he teach law? Study of the law does not make one an IP parasite. Teaching the law does not make one a greedy hypocrite. Teaching the law during the week, and applying one's knowledge of the law on weekends to promote justice and uphold fair play seems rather more laudable than the pursuits of the stereotypical lawyer.
Perhaps the Troll would care to offer some counter-examples that distinguish Mr. Lessig as a greedy hypocrite, rather than the admirable figure the documented evidence seems to present?
kanji are akin to icons (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So "Dojinshi" is....? (Score:2, Insightful)
No one knows about it because their fans don't go making translations into other languages and having fan pages so that others can discover it. Anime outside of Japan started as the tiniest segment of the population gathering in clubs and mailing tapes until the BBSs and the internet came along.
Art films are still in the tiny club stage... it's a little hard to compare. Anime fans can be snobs/purists just as much as Art Film fans. It's only when that segment grows to include the 'common' people that you will be able to make any viable type of comparison.