They do. Anime music videos are entirely illegitimate. In fact, a particular band (whose name escapes me) actually asked animemusicvideo.com to take down all videos with any of their songs in them. They were polite, but they didn’t have to be. I can’t blame them either, someone emailed the band and asked if it was something they’d officially done or authorized (they hadn’t).
This is sort of like fansubs. All fansubbing is inherently illegal. There is no ambiguity in the matter at all. I used to think the translation was original material and thus protected (but the copy of the footage/sountrack was illegal). I have since learned that under the Berne Convention unauthorized translation is specifically made illegal.
Many people never learned this detail because nobody sues fansubbers, they (usually) politely ask for it to stop. At worst you get a formal cease-and-desist from the company’s attorney. No fansubber has ever been stupid enough to tell an anime company where to stick it when they get told to stop* and that’s because they’d get CREAMED.
Anime music videos violate the copyright of the music AND the anime they’re made out of. I’m honestly surprised the RIAA hasn’t tried to clamp down on it. Probably because if people wanted the song, they’ll download a 3 meg MP3 before a 50 meg AMV, and so the only money they’re “losing” is from the royalties AMV makers can’t afford to pay anyway, so they figured “losing battle”.
- – Okay, one did. Anime Junkies told the licensor of Ninja Scroll TV where to stick it. But even they backed down almost immediately, and ceased operating shortly afterwards. (It didn’t help AJ that the company in question had cofinanced the show.)
[ 10-23-2006, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
