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stuff & nonsense
Just a few recent musings.
Whenever the issue of the protective, proprietary attitude Japanese fanartists and doujinshi creators have toward their works comes up--specifically, that they get very offended/upset by Western fen posting their art or doujinshi scans--one of the popular defending arguments is that the J fen are stealing other peoples' characters to begin with, and therefore have no right to get so huffy about us stealing their work in return. Which seems to point to a fundamental problem with our understanding of intellectual property that I blame in part on our currently insane copyright laws.
Plagiarism, duplication, and creating derivative works are all various forms of 'stealing' intellectual property, but they are not at all the same and I wish people would stop equating them. (And none of these are equivalent to actual, physical theft, despite the insistence of certain anti-downloading ads. Shut up, RIAA, you're confusing the issue.)
Plagiarism is claiming someone else's work as your own; it's the worse artistic crime, in my book, not just for the victim of the theft, who loses their rightful credit; but for the thief, who is in essence admitting to the world that their own works have no value, that what comes from their own creative soul isn't worth sharing. Tragically pathetic. Duplication is copying and disseminating someone else's work, but not claiming it as your own creation. Sometimes this can be dishonest, such as bootleggers, turning a profit on someone else's hard work without giving them any real compensation. Most fen, on the other hand, do it with purer motivations - they're simply trying to share something they enjoyed with others who will enjoy it. Lastly, there's derivative works, in which one takes someone else's ideas and applies one's own creative efforts. The original creator is credited for the ideas; the derivative creator is credited for the actual work. To my mind, derivative works are the least objectionable and frankly should be totally legal. Ideas are cheap; it's the execution that's difficult. And a derivative work doesn't impinge on consumption of the original; almost no fan reads fanfic instead of watching the original show or reading the original manga.
So, to my mind, Japanese fen are perfectly justified in appropriating another mangaka's characters to create doujinshi but still getting upset when those doujinshi get scanned and posted online without their permission. Especially since self-publishing is quite expensive, and some doujinshi creators make part of their income off the doujinshi they sell. Every person who reads a doujinshi for free instead of buying it from them is depriving them of the money they'd need to print more doujinshi.
Except the problem is, most American fans wouldn't be buying the doujinshi anyway. Most American fen can't buy it - it's not that we're cheapskates; it's not an option for us. We can't go to Comiket, and a lot of circles don't ship internationally even if they do sell online, or have any English language support. And I honestly don't think most Japanese fen appreciate this; doujinshi is so readily available in Japan that they probably don't have a good grasp of how difficult it is to get here. There's also the language issue; the majority of American fen not being literate in Japanese, the only doujinshi we can actually read are scanlations. Most of us who scan and share doujinshi aren't doing it because we want to rip off our fellow Japanese fen. We're doing it because we want to share wonderful stories with other fans and we don't have any other way of going about it. We often see it as honoring the creator, because we want to share it so much; but it's not truly honoring if the creator sees it as an insult or a threat. It's not fair to the creator--but it's not really fair to the audience to deny them the opportunity to see it at all. Or, for that matter, for the creator to lose all those potential fans (and buyers) who wouldn't otherwise know they existed.
I'm not sure how we can explain this to the Japanese fen, though. Especially since they have such a different perspective on fanning in general--not only do they not scan manga so much, but they don't even use official art, generally, for layouts or icons or anything. I'm not sure if this is out of respect for the original creators, or something else, but it's a reason why they're often upset by American fen appropriating their own fan art without permission. (I've wondered if it's also because it's difficult to differentiate plagiarism from duplication when one can't read the surrounding text--many Japanese fen aren't that fluent in English, so they might not realize that someone posting a picture isn't in fact saying it's their own work. Especially since a lot of people don't bother giving credit when sharing a pretty fanart they found somewhere). There's a cultural and linguistic rift here that I hope can eventually be bridged. Some fanartists have taken their sites offline rather than risk getting their work stolen (as they see it); I've even heard some doujinshi circles refuse to sell to Americans. It's sad to have this conflict, when in the end we're all fans, all loving manga and anime, even if we express that love differently.
Whenever the issue of the protective, proprietary attitude Japanese fanartists and doujinshi creators have toward their works comes up--specifically, that they get very offended/upset by Western fen posting their art or doujinshi scans--one of the popular defending arguments is that the J fen are stealing other peoples' characters to begin with, and therefore have no right to get so huffy about us stealing their work in return. Which seems to point to a fundamental problem with our understanding of intellectual property that I blame in part on our currently insane copyright laws.
Plagiarism, duplication, and creating derivative works are all various forms of 'stealing' intellectual property, but they are not at all the same and I wish people would stop equating them. (And none of these are equivalent to actual, physical theft, despite the insistence of certain anti-downloading ads. Shut up, RIAA, you're confusing the issue.)
Plagiarism is claiming someone else's work as your own; it's the worse artistic crime, in my book, not just for the victim of the theft, who loses their rightful credit; but for the thief, who is in essence admitting to the world that their own works have no value, that what comes from their own creative soul isn't worth sharing. Tragically pathetic. Duplication is copying and disseminating someone else's work, but not claiming it as your own creation. Sometimes this can be dishonest, such as bootleggers, turning a profit on someone else's hard work without giving them any real compensation. Most fen, on the other hand, do it with purer motivations - they're simply trying to share something they enjoyed with others who will enjoy it. Lastly, there's derivative works, in which one takes someone else's ideas and applies one's own creative efforts. The original creator is credited for the ideas; the derivative creator is credited for the actual work. To my mind, derivative works are the least objectionable and frankly should be totally legal. Ideas are cheap; it's the execution that's difficult. And a derivative work doesn't impinge on consumption of the original; almost no fan reads fanfic instead of watching the original show or reading the original manga.
So, to my mind, Japanese fen are perfectly justified in appropriating another mangaka's characters to create doujinshi but still getting upset when those doujinshi get scanned and posted online without their permission. Especially since self-publishing is quite expensive, and some doujinshi creators make part of their income off the doujinshi they sell. Every person who reads a doujinshi for free instead of buying it from them is depriving them of the money they'd need to print more doujinshi.
Except the problem is, most American fans wouldn't be buying the doujinshi anyway. Most American fen can't buy it - it's not that we're cheapskates; it's not an option for us. We can't go to Comiket, and a lot of circles don't ship internationally even if they do sell online, or have any English language support. And I honestly don't think most Japanese fen appreciate this; doujinshi is so readily available in Japan that they probably don't have a good grasp of how difficult it is to get here. There's also the language issue; the majority of American fen not being literate in Japanese, the only doujinshi we can actually read are scanlations. Most of us who scan and share doujinshi aren't doing it because we want to rip off our fellow Japanese fen. We're doing it because we want to share wonderful stories with other fans and we don't have any other way of going about it. We often see it as honoring the creator, because we want to share it so much; but it's not truly honoring if the creator sees it as an insult or a threat. It's not fair to the creator--but it's not really fair to the audience to deny them the opportunity to see it at all. Or, for that matter, for the creator to lose all those potential fans (and buyers) who wouldn't otherwise know they existed.
I'm not sure how we can explain this to the Japanese fen, though. Especially since they have such a different perspective on fanning in general--not only do they not scan manga so much, but they don't even use official art, generally, for layouts or icons or anything. I'm not sure if this is out of respect for the original creators, or something else, but it's a reason why they're often upset by American fen appropriating their own fan art without permission. (I've wondered if it's also because it's difficult to differentiate plagiarism from duplication when one can't read the surrounding text--many Japanese fen aren't that fluent in English, so they might not realize that someone posting a picture isn't in fact saying it's their own work. Especially since a lot of people don't bother giving credit when sharing a pretty fanart they found somewhere). There's a cultural and linguistic rift here that I hope can eventually be bridged. Some fanartists have taken their sites offline rather than risk getting their work stolen (as they see it); I've even heard some doujinshi circles refuse to sell to Americans. It's sad to have this conflict, when in the end we're all fans, all loving manga and anime, even if we express that love differently.
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For one thing, it is really difficult to get our hands on doujinshi, despite places like eBay, JPQueen, Rinkya, or even some of the on-line stores that sell them. Plus, the shipping is painful--you can pick up a doujinshi book for about $7US, but then you'll pay the same amount for shipping, which doubles the price. (And it's difficult to combine orders to lower shipping, because you run the risk of getting up into hundreds of dollars then. I've still bought well over a hundred various books myself, I wince to think of all the money I've sunk into this over the last four or five years.) You also often don't get a chance to get a feel for the doujinshika's work until you've already bought it and paid a ton of shipping (which is why I like anthologies so much better <3) and it's just easier after awhile to download them on-line. And when they're scanslated and I can actually understand them? Fabulous. So, so fabulous.
I have seen one or two doujinshika beginning to sell to Western fans, but the prices are often still ridiculously high. I know Bambi Takada (who did Gundam Wing doujinshi) had a partnership with some Western anime merchandise store, that they would 'legally' sell her works to Western fans, but they were something like $40US per book. Which was ridiculously expensive, no matter how pretty they might have been.
The more I think about this, the more I compare it to the way manga is being distributed in the West, especially the US. As they're properly brought over and made easily available on the shelves of bookstores, scanslators often drop their projects and ask distrobution of their earlier work be ceased. Not all places do this (you can still find One Piece or Bleach or Fruits Basket scanslations on-line if you look long enough), but people will buy the manga, quite happily. They really do like having it to hold in their hands if they like a series. I think doujinshi would be the same, but we don't have the option, especially when they often refuse to ship internationally.
It's interesting to ponder whether or not the J-fen have an idea of how much more difficult it is for Western fen to enjoy these sorts of thing. I think, perhaps, more and more they might understand we're not trying to plagiarize their fanart (given the way I've seen more and more people start to link to the original sites where the art was found), but I don't think it matters, because it's still terribly offensive that we just take the fanart/doujinshi and do whatever we like with it, whether it be layouts or icons or just sharing the pretty with fellow fans.
(As a random/tangentinal note, I find it interesting that J-fen are the ones who have more of the amazing artists, but Western fen are the ones who make decent site layouts. The j-fen have all this gorgeous fanart of their own, they could make beautiful layouts, yet... I could probably count on one hand the number of layouts that have genuinely impressed me. I wonder how much that affects layout afficionados, if they just itch to do something with it because NO ONE does?)
It's a shame there's not something like OFP to explain something like this to the J-fen. Not that I'm sure it would really do much good, honestly. I suspect they'd still feel stealing is stealing is stealing.
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The money does matter; I think that's where much of the conflict comes from. Not just money, but the whole business. In Western fandom there is a clear delineation between the creators and fandom. Very few fen actually 'go pro', and one of the major aspects of fanning is that there's no actual monetary profit, we're doing it purely out of love. People who do try to make money off it - such as folks selling bootleg t-shirts using others' fan art - are often looked down upon, not just for the plagiarism but because they're rocking the boat, bringing fandom into the producers' domain of profit, and the fandom might suffer legal action because of it. There used to be more money exchanged hands between fans, when print zines were more popular, but those were sold underground, and for the most part got away with it because they were sold basically at cost; you paid for the printing costs. Since the internet has started providing a cheaper method of distribution, zines are mostly dying out. (which is a shame, really, because there is something to be said for print copy and editors...)
J fandom, on the other hand, can be profitable. Frankly I have no idea *how* they manage it (whether their copyright laws are markedly different, or simply not obeyed) but doujinshi can make profit (I mean, anthologies are sold in BookOff, which is the main used bookstore chain!); fan t-shirts are sold in shops, and I suspect fan art is as well. There is also a lot of cross-over between producer and fen; many a pro mangaka got their start making doujinshi, either fan or original - and many pros still make doujinshi. This astonished me when I first learned it - in the Western mindset, once you've 'gone pro' you no longer 'need' to much around with fanning, and probably won't even if you want to, for fear, again, of legal ramifications. I've heard pro mangaka actively solicit doujinshi from fen. While as several American authors seek to shut all fanfic down, and most others refuse to read it/can't read it under order of their agents and lawyers. It's an entirely different perspective on fanning.
That's changing a little now, I think; Western fandom is starting to see fans going sort-of pro with webcomics and the like - original works that can be profitable for the creator, but the creators not being as beholden to corporate legal issues. And fanart is rising in popularity in Western circles (not sure how much is Japanese influence versus, again, the ease of online distribution...) I've noticed that Western fanartists tend to be the most sympathetic to the J-fen's views, too. And I think the debate over copyright laws in general is going to come to a head sometime soon; the 'net is so vastly different from anything we've had before in human history that some rewriting is required...that might change things. On either side of the Pacific. We'll see...
...what is OFP? I agree that I doubt J-fen would totally agree with our points, but it would still be nice to try to get them across...at least open a dialogue!
--as far as the tangential note goes, I'm not that surprised that Western fen are better at layouts in general. J-fen sport more talented artists but I doubt that's due to any innate genetic differences; it's a cultural thing. The artistic and creative talents of Western fen get directed differently...though don't know if it's more cause or effect, that we use official art because we don't draw as much on average (not being exposed to drawing as constantly from an early age as the Japanese) and don't produce as much original artworks ourselves; or we don't produce as many original artworks because we allow ourselves to use official art...
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It's kind of like the fish that rides on the shark's back.
OFP = Online Fanarts Protection
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btw, is that article online? I wish Western producers would take that attitude more often...fandom often seems to be considered the enemy here, and it makes no sense, when it is free advertisement!
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Translate this to Japanese? But then, where to post is the problem. Still, I thought this was one of the best explanations/justifications for W-fan use of J-fanproduct I've ever seen. It's a pity that the people who would really get the most benefit out of it, will probably never get a chance to read it. ;_;
Thanks for writing it though. You really captured why I think it's ok for Western fans to use (as long as they attribute) J-fanworks. Can't tell you how many doujinshi I've purchased (when I can ;_;) based on seeing someone's work in an icon or layout. It's a free viral advertising, more than anything.
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That's the thing, if doujinshi were more accessible, we'd be more open to listening...as it is, when the J-fen say "take down the doujishi" they're not saying, "respect the artist and pay your dues!" (which is what I think *they* think they're telling us) but, essentially, "you can't read this at all!" Small wonder Western fen get touchy in turn...
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It's odd trying to explain that showing official images if not a crime in bad Japanese. I think she got rather annoyed with me. But since I didn't see why to refuse, I took it down anyway XD
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Actually I'm not quite sure where manga scans fall legally, whether it'd be under fair use or something else, or whether they actually are illegal...copyright laws being so nuts nowadays anyhow. For that matter I've never been sure if it's the legal aspect that J-fen get tetchy about, or a more nebulous respect for the creators, or something else...(but the Shounen Jump weekly scans, they're often from Japanese sources, aren't they? So it's not a universal thing even in Japan...)