I got mildly irritated by a certain interaction at Twitter this morning, and would like to just post a rant here.

Admittedly I have not looked too thoroughly into Japan’s Copyrights Act (I’m not in my tip-top condition and I dread to do work-related things at home), but despite me rummaging through Google to see if anyone explained why Pixiv doesn’t allow art to be reproduced without permission, I came out with little to none. Sure, there are a lot of masterposts on how-tos and explaining that it’s in Pixiv’s terms of service, but that doesn’t explain why that is needed.

I’ll try to make it simple: Japan’s copyrights laws are ass-weird.

Japan’s copyrights laws are ass-weird.



Japan’s copyrights laws are ass-weird.



Since this is a rant post, and this involves one particular fandom I’m in (read: Suikoden), I feel the need to sometimes relate how Konami/Konmai/Konwhatever is acting is based on the excessive powers granted to them under the Japanese legislation.

So, about fandom activity in Japan…

1) Derivative works/fanworks are actually illegal.

Yes. Comiket is illegal. In fact, any works that may “hurt the integrity of the original work” are illegal, subject to the copyright holder’s interpretation. Most smart businesses/publishers in Japan don’t enforce their rights because, well, free advertising and whatnot. Doujin and fandoms are operating on a goodwill basis. Pixiv disallowing reproduction is just a natural term arising from the legislation. (and oh my god don’t get me started on the TPP)

Guess which company has been running around flinging their rights at their fandom in Japan?

2) There doesn’t seem to be a clause for fair use.

Oh yes. They do have ‘fair use’ clauses, but it comes with lots of terms and conditions like “get rights holder’s permission before you do reproduce it for whatever”, also “only in certain circumstances”, the absolute great vague void of infinity. Which is why Pixiv makes people ask for permission for reproduction. wow much surprise

Also, please leave parody clauses at the door.

3) You can’t be touching any official stuff.

I haven’t actually seen any official-art graphics edit that’s prevalent in, say, tumblr. That’s because touching them is illegal unless you got permission. Even for your own use.

This is it. The secret to the sheer quantity of fanartists in Japan.

They can’t touch official works, so they’re forced to create fanworks to show their love. They draw/write to show their affection, because their options were far too limited in the first place.

YEP.

4) Anyway, even if you end up getting permission and everything, if the content you make pisses the rightsholder off, they can still sue your pants off for “misrepresenting” the “integrity” of their work.

Pretty much.





I would post a bit on the amazing culture of the Japanese being very obedient and hierarchical which feeds into their policymaking, but I’m far too uninformed on that front to say anything (aside from being first-hand witness to it happening to even the western interspace’s deemed safest space– fandom).

From what I have observed, the JP fandom I’m in is so shy of Koushiki (i.e. the official/canon copyrights holder) that they make sure their fanworks do not get picked up by Konmai’s radar. They lock their accounts, they shy away from sharing their fanworks, they delete images at a whim, they panic at the sight of anything official appearing on their twitter timeline.

This is Japan fandom.





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tl;dr reposting artwork without permission is not only hurting the artists in the normal ways that most people are already aware of, reposting artwork also subjects the artist in question, regardless of whether the artist is aware of their art being distributed with their permission or not, to the risk of copyright claims from copyrights holders. (yes, some asshole companies do that.) Continuing reposting will just make pixiv/JP artists more frustrated with the West and shut off any further avenues of connectivity by the media we should have jointly shared.

It is illegal. And they value legality hugely. Respect their culture and listen to their goddamned requests to ask for permission.





Links for those who want to do further reading:

http://www.cric.or.jp/english/clj/cl2.html



http://www.animenation.net/blog/2014/08/12/34666/



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djinshi#Copyright_issues



http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1628711



http://www.accu.or.jp/appreb/10copyr/pdf_ws0810/c2_06.pdf

