I’ve recently started experimenting with making AMVs (anime music videos) using video game footage (mostly Final fantasy, Xenosaga, although there’s Legend of Dragoon, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, and others in there too). I’d love some feedback and opinions if you guys want to check them out.
Go to www.youtube.com , and find movies by the user theladyphoenix. To go in order, start with VG Amalgamation Parts 1 and 2, then VG Experimentation, and finally VG Romance.
Be kind, I’m still learning how to do this, but I thought some of you might be interested.
Um… the whole point of making one, unless the author is terrible at it, is that the music DOES have a relation to the images being shown. The images are being specially chosen to match the music and go along with the theme, emotion, and words. Don’t you know how this works?
(I have a couple of videos where the anime chosen is more appropriate than the official music video!)
I haven’t seen ladyphoenix’s videos in particular though.
nod It’s an artistic skill, and a lot of people don’t really have the knack for it. The majority of the AMVs I download get trashed immediately because they don’t quite work, but some are very good.
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.)
I’ve looked up the legality of AMV’s, and actually, the creation of them is entirely legal. The distribution of them is a grey area, although the Japanese market actually tends to support the distribution of these things, as it gives them free publicity, and they aren’t as much against the distribution of creativity using their material.
But I’m sorry if I stepped on any toes here. I’m very anti-piracy, as you all know, but I didn’t see any harm in AMV’s. Obviously I was wrong, forgive me.
By “illegitimate” I meant “illegal”. Precisely that. Personally I have no problem with the idea (they’re as questionable as fansubs or doujinshi, two other ideas I have no problems with). I was simply saying that as far as I know, they’re 100% illegal.
I am curious where you looked this up, that you were told it is a grey area. My understanding was that it clearly is not – that it’s something companies could go after, but choose to ignore.
