So Am I Supposed to be Afraid Now?
So the Japanese Government has sent a request to the U.S. to help stop the distribution of fansubbed anime. While we’ve heard these kind of threats from companies before, never the government. Then again, since anime is the single thing Japan is bettting its future on, it is in their right to control their own copyright. I’ll just wait and see what comes of this, whether it will grow out of proportion like Odex or just die off like so many other threats of copyright enforcement. Knowing my dear government’s record on enforcing its own copyright, let’s just see how effectual they are at enforcing another country’s.
Filed under News, Observations
Quoting myself from another forum:
Classic arguments aside, let’s examine the potential repercussions of this: Likely nothing.
The MPAA and RIAA have been demanding the US government take action for many years. Decades, really, if you look back. And yet not much has been done. Why? Even with their lobbying power, though, they haven’t been able to get around the fact that non-commercial copyright infringement is primarily the domain of civil, not criminal law.
Japanese companies already have the same civil court avenues open to them as US companies. Short of criminalizing all copyright infringement (which is discussed occasionally, but hasn’t happened), then there’s not much the US government is going to do. If they haven’t done it yet to protect domestic corporate interests, why would they do it to protect foreign corporate interests?
Ultimately, yes, these are the whinings of a some (most certainly NOT all) of the industry in Japan as they refuse to adapt to a changing marketplace and instead respond by squeezing the consumer further. Sadly, Japanese lawmakers are even more firmly in the pocket of select corporate interest than US lawmakers are, but that evil (and I use the word sincerely) power doesn’t extend outside their national borders.
Comment on October 23, 2007 @ 10:21 pm
I like how the situation here corresponds with what Mac said.
Comment on October 26, 2007 @ 1:33 pm