Doujinshi – Japanese Copyright protection

Doujinshi – Japanese Copyright protection. A different response to cultural remixing.

WHen looking around for different approaches to the type of copyright infringement so feared in the west and yet so much part of the consumers global response to digital media and in particular the invocation from creators to become involved in the unfolding of transmedial narratives I have looked at the japanese fan fiction.

Akamatsu: Japanese copyright changes threaten fan comics

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/11/akamatsu-japanese-copyright-changes-threaten-fan-comics/

What would happen if I decided to make my own Spiderman comic and then sold it on line? Disney would not be very happy and my attempts at establishing a new publishing empire would very quickly come to a very sticky end.

Well in Japan the mainstream comic book publishers take a very different approach or at least traditionally have take a very different approach. In Japan they are known as Doujinshi (Fan made comic books) and are considered by many to be of central importance to the Managa comic book industry, in the UK and most of the developed world they would simply be called illegal.

Currently Japanese copyright Law allows copyright owners to tolerate a certain level of remixing! 

"Most doujinshi, sell in smaller number, and many observers think that the doujinshi phenomenon is good for the manga market, because it builds interest for the series and characters and provides a training ground for new creators—perhaps the best known being Rumiko Takahashi, creator of InuYasha and Ranma 1/2, who got her start creating doujinshi under the guidance of Lone Wolf and Cub artist Kazuo Koike."

While sales of an individual doujinshi are small, the phenomenon is a big one. Comiket, the Japanese comics market draws over half a million doujinshi sellers and buyers to the Tokyo Big Sight convention center twice a year, consider this to be be the world’s largest comics convention.

If Japan signs the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, e new regulations would have a chilling effect on the doujinshi market. The law would also extend copyright terms to match the terms current in the U.S. None of this is good for the thriving fan culture that has made manga and anime such a phenomenon in Japan. The new rules would allow police and prosecutors to take action against copyright violators without a formal complaint from the copyright holder, this would make such actions much more likely.

 Not everybody agrees - see the response to the article that stimulated this blog:

Comment

Michael P

November 1, 2011 at 1:56 pm

I’ll go ahead and be that guy: Thank *God*. Doujinshi is freaking terrible.

Oh, and as far as changing US copyright law to make publishing fanfic and other such abominations legal: No thank you. I’d rather not walk into the bookstore and see “My Immortal” sitting on an end cap, thank you.