Japanese Government Enforcing Anti-Piracy Law on Anime and Manga - Update

[roseofbattle]

Japanese Government Enforcing Anti-Piracy Law on Anime and Manga - Update

The Japanese government will launch a massive anti-piracy campaign for the anime and manga industry this Friday.

Update: Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry revealed its Manga-Anime Guardians project [http://manga-anime-here.com/guardians], which will monitor and remove illegally uploaded copies of anime and manga. The project aims to create an environment where people can enjoy official versions, spur creation, and continue to create new works and cultivate new talent. The METI states online piracy hurts Japan by nearly $20 billion. Over half of US anime and manga fans watch and read pirated works, according to the METI.

The project is a part of the Manga-Anime Anti-Piracy Committee, which includes Aniplex, Kadokawa, Good Smile Company, Kodansha, Sunrise, Shueisha, Shogakukan, ShoPro, Studio Ghibli, Tezuka Productions, Toei Animation, TMS Entertainment, Bandai Namco Games, Pierrot, and Bushiroad.

Original: This Friday the Japanese government will begin an anti-piracy campaign with 15 anime and manga producers and distributors and enforce legislation from October 2012 directed at illegal file sharing.

In 2012 Japanese government enacted a bill that punished both people who uploaded copyright infringing material and people who downloaded the material. The jail sentence can be as long as two years for downloading copyright infringing material and as long as 10 years for uploading it.

Since the legislation, piracy has remained a problem in Japan just as it has worldwide. Anime and manga are one of Japan's cultural exports as they have spread in popularity around the world.

The government and the 15 producers and distributors will begin contacting 580 "overseas pirate sites" demanding they delete copyright infringing content. The sites are located around the world, but many are in China, where much of the anti-piracy campaign will focus. A new site will direct fans to legal copies of affected works, which are available for a few hundred yen (equal to a few US dollars), the NHK noted.

"We want to create a project so that anime fans overseas can enjoy Japanese content legally and without infringement worries while the profits are paid to anime production companies and publishers," the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry stated to the NHK.

Because Japanese anime and manga is a niche market outside of Japan, many people will watch anime and read manga with fan translations before they are licensed and legally distributed in their home country. The Japanese government and partnered foreign distributors will need to address this problem, and anti-piracy laws have done little to fix it so far.

Source: Torrent Freak [http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140728/k10013332551000.html]

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[gigastar]

So theyre finally doing it.

Are they going after everything? Or just the things that are licenced and available overseas?

 

[Legion]

A nice idea, but outside of Japan at least, the largest problem is they simply do not licence it for many countries. The USA seems to get a reasonable amount of online options but beyond that you are lucky if a hugely popular series gets a Western DVD release within 2 years of a Japanese one.

When you compare that to some non-Americans not being willing to wait a week or even a day for a US television program to be released before pirating it, it does put it in perspective.

Even with legal avenues such as Funimation and CrunchyRoll, they have bizarre restrictions on which countries can watch what. The Anime and Manga industry consider non-Japanese countries to be a very low priority a lot of the time. So while piracy is bad, they really should not be surprised how bad it is.

 

[youji itami]

A nice idea, but outside of Japan at least, the largest problem is they simply do not licence it for many countries. The USA seems to get a reasonable amount of online options but beyond that you are lucky if a hugely popular series gets a Western DVD release within 2 years of a Japanese one.

When you compare that to some non-Americans not being willing to wait a week or even a day for a US television program to be released before pirating it, it does put it in perspective.

Even with legal avenues such as Funimation and CrunchyRoll, they have bizarre restrictions on which countries can watch what. The Anime and Manga industry consider non-Japanese countries to be a very low priority a lot of the time. So while piracy is bad, they really should not be surprised how bad it is.

A lot of shows are refused licensing or have it delayed because of there fear of reverse importing. That the Japanese fans will wait to buy the cheaper US release rather than pay $60+ for 2 episodes of there normal release (some anime cost as much as $100 for a 22 min episode in Japan)

 

[Roxas1359]

So while piracy is bad, they really should not be surprised how bad it is.

They should also not be surprised if it possibly gets worse when this idea blows up in their face. The thing about combating piracy is, the more you try to head on fight pirates, the more fuel you are giving them to want to continue doing piracy. While at the same time, shutting down fan made subs and translations might cause more to want to pirate as well. Because as you said, not everything is localized, and most of the time it's just to the US. Even then, with all the restrictions on what is and what isn't allowed means a good majority of things aren't localized in western markets at all.

I'm reminded of how the music industry tries to make itself still relevant because they thought CDs would be forever and MP3s would not catch on. Well they were wrong, and now can't stop music piracy, and I believe the anime and manga industry is at this point as well in which they can't stop it. Reason is because it took them so long to realize markets existed outside of Japan. All in all, while many sites might be taken down because of this, new ones will replace them, just like back when One Manga went down (anyone remember that site).

 

[Weaver]

You can buy anime legally for a few dollars? When the first BluRay of Madoka released here it was $120 fucking bucks for three episodes. If someone can point me to a site with English subs that I can download DRM free, 1080p episodes for three dollars I would be over the moon.

Cruncyroll is great for mainstream stuff, but the problem is shows disappear off there and then you can't ever watch them again. You can't go back and watch your favourite shows from 15 years ago like you can with actual copies. Also like, I can't go on there and watch Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space because they don't stock weird Japanese art-house stuff.

 

[AstaresPanda]

ffs. if the pirates are offering a better service then your doing somthing wrong and need to adapt to the times.

 

[The White Hunter]

So now I won't be able to watch or read quite a lot of it until it's been out for years. I buy all my anime and manga as soon as it's available in my country, until it is out I will watch/read fansubs and scanlations online.

 

[tzimize]

A nice idea, but outside of Japan at least, the largest problem is they simply do not licence it for many countries. The USA seems to get a reasonable amount of online options but beyond that you are lucky if a hugely popular series gets a Western DVD release within 2 years of a Japanese one.

When you compare that to some non-Americans not being willing to wait a week or even a day for a US television program to be released before pirating it, it does put it in perspective.

Even with legal avenues such as Funimation and CrunchyRoll, they have bizarre restrictions on which countries can watch what. The Anime and Manga industry consider non-Japanese countries to be a very low priority a lot of the time. So while piracy is bad, they really should not be surprised how bad it is.

Yep.

Honestly, this has been the problem for most industries. Music industry. Movie industry. Man, how awesome would it be if someone actually LEARNT something from all of this and didnt go through the EXACT same hoops as the stupid industry before them did?

 

[Queen Michael]

But now how am I gonna read an entire manga series for free and pretend it benefits the creator that I don't pay for it? (Oh YES I motherloving went there.)

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

If someone can point me to a site with English subs that I can download DRM free, 1080p episodes for three dollars I would be over the moon.

This is my main concern. Why is it that there are no drm-free digital video services yet? Until that happens, they won't be competing for any pirate's cash. Streaming isn't really a bad thing, but if your Internet can't keep up with it the quality will be shit and it can be a hassle to skip forward and back and streams will occasionally freeze. Shit, spotty Internet service works just fine for torrenting though which can be started and stopped at anytime and you'll end up with a better quality and more flexible product than even the fastest Internet streams

 

[PunkRex]

Well, I suppose I could always read western comics... *sigh*

Seriously, what do they expect? Half of all anime and manga doesn't get released outside of Japan and unless it's ridiculously popular the chances of actually finding it are slim.

This won't work, you can't find up to date annuals, like Shounen Jump, easily in England at least and most anime is to risky for cartoon channels to air. Then of course there's the cons and their unlicensed goods, all this is gonna do is stifle the anime/manga culture.

Make it easy to buy it and I will buy it, or don't because someone online will.

Before anyone goes thinking i'm one of those peeps who doesn't buy anything ever, most manga series i've read I own, I even have an entire series in Japanese which wasn't released over here that I bought from the Japan Centre because I love the art so much...
_>
OKAY, IT'S AN ECCHI SEREIES, DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!!!

 

[RandV80]

ffs. if the pirates are offering a better service then your doing somthing wrong and need to adapt to the times.

Problem here is in this particular industry it's going to be very very hard to beat the 'pirates' service. An episode/chapter is released in Japan and within 24 hours it's been professionally subbed/translated and readily available in your language. The official business can never be that quick when you start taking regionalism into account, not to mention all the other stuff they have to catch up on.

 

[aba1]

This is a terrible idea the reason anime and manga is getting popular here is because people have access to it so by making everyone have to buy it first they are both restricting access through money and whats legally been brought over. I know personally I buy what I enjoyed but honestly I know very few people who would be into anime or manga if there weren't fan subs for them to have watched in the first place.

I suspect they will end up shrinking the market more than anything cause anime is too expensive to risk potentially liking it on.

 

[Foolery]

2 years for downloading and 10 for uploading? Fucking christ, I could commit armed robbery here in Canada and be out faster.

 

[Alterego-X]

Problem here is in this particular industry it's going to be very very hard to beat the 'pirates' service. An episode/chapter is released in Japan and within 24 hours it's been professionally subbed/translated and readily available in your language. The official business can never be that quick when you start taking regionalism into account, not to mention all the other stuff they have to catch up on.

In Japan, an episode being "released" means that it is being aired on TV. For free. With practically zero advertisement revenues. The series' profit from disc sales months later, which are only paid for by a core of otaku fan collectors who choose to order the whole thing for artist support/bragging rights/superior image quality.

If anything, the local industry culture is a prime example of artists coexisting with "piracy culture", or at least with the honor based system of unrestricted access to the content and fans choosing to pay afterwards.

Except that practically speaking, they could adapt that by letting western people watch the shows free on the Internet, and maybe a few choosing to order disc copies too.

They are too obsessed with enforcing their legal "rights" just because they can, to realize that they are pretty meaningless.

 

[Alterego-X]

So now I won't be able to watch or read quite a lot of it until it's been out for years. I buy all my anime and manga as soon as it's available in my country, until it is out I will watch/read fansubs and scanlations online.

Well, you will be able to do it, but from now on you have to suffer the knowledge that the IP owners would really, really, really like it if you weren't able to do it.

 

[The White Hunter]

So now I won't be able to watch or read quite a lot of it until it's been out for years. I buy all my anime and manga as soon as it's available in my country, until it is out I will watch/read fansubs and scanlations online.

Well, you will be able to do it, but from now on you have to suffer the knowledge that the IP owners would really, really, really like it if you weren't able to do it.

So Toei will hate me.

I'm cool with that. They fuck up enough scenes to justify that.

 

[Raziel]

But now how am I gonna read an entire manga series for free and pretend it benefits the creator that I don't pay for it? (Oh YES I motherloving went there.)

I'd be perfectly willing to pay a monthly subscription for the manga site I read that went to the authors. I do pay for a crunchyroll subscription. But frankly their service is not as good as the free hosting sites are.

Not to mention that the only reason I watch most of it is because its free or near free. There are few series a year I watch that I would buy on disc if I had the money, which I don't anyway. Its the same with american tv shows. Sure I'll watch them on tv but there are so few I'd ever buy.

If they shut down the hosting sites thats their prerogative. But it won't get me to buy anymore unless they offer a good netflixy kind of service. I'll just stop watching or reading.

I'll bet this gives a good boost to manhwa series if they take out manga hosting sites.