Except they made it pretty clear that they are open to those sorts of negotiations. What the hell do you expect them to do, go bashing down Peter Payne’s door demanding he license their games?
It was obviously a lie. They’re too xenophobic to accept it.
Though seriously… we all knew minori went xenophobic after the RapeLay ordeal. People should move on and work on titles from companies interested in Western expansion… like Black Cyc! 
Okay, maybe China was a bad example.
How’s this instead: How many instances do you hear of Japanese anime/manga companies actually bothering to persue and successfully sue fansub/scanlation groups? They’re in a far better position (and have a better justification) to sue than any eroge company I’ve seen.
Seriously though, we’re talking about an obscure company, one that deters foreign companies from negotiating licensing deals by restricting non-Japanese IP addresses from accessing their site, persuing a foreign not-for-profit site making a software modifications that actually require a legal copy of their games to operate. Even if copyright laws give them the power to sue on the basis that the script is their property, that’s only in theory–In actual real-life practice, they’d have to be able to prove that their company has been directly harmed by the distribution of this modification in order to successfully persue any actual damages. No judge would just let a plaintiff collect damages if it isn’t even intelligent enough to form a solid reason for suing other than saying “it’s ours”, especially if they come from halfway across the planet and doesn’t even show any intention of doing business in the country they’re suing in (as demonstrated by the website restrictions).
The only way a lawsuit would actually work in real practice is if they were to prove that the translators were distributing pirated versions of their games along with the patches. They’d have to be able to prove that the makers/distributers of the said patches were directly involved in some form of piracy to win. The argument that people frequently use translation patches with pirated games holds as much legal substance as suing the creators of BitTorrent because they’re distributing software that could be used for piracy.
I’d hate to sound like a pirate-sympathizer, but considering the jackassery that Minori has engaged in with regards to the foreigners lately, TLWiki and NNL should just ignore their notifications and continue developing/distributing translation patches for their games. Seriously, not even Illusion has acted this idiotic.
Actually… if they go the IP infringement route, they can use the immaterial or moral damages clause in this situation. Doesn’t have to be money in that case: blatant ignoring of the IP holder’s wishes, is often enough. It’s not a matter of IF a publisher loses money from an illegal translation, but that NO ONE has the right to authorize a PUBLIC (key word here) translation but the publisher. And then there’s that Universal Copyright Convention.
For your viewing pleasure (colorized emphasis mine):
Of course few companies actually enforce these, if it’s a market of non-entry… but it’s within their purview. Off the top of my head, most recent “illegal translations” I can recall that made the news, are those Harry Potter books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Pott … anslations
I also faintly recalling [u]Lord of the Rings[/u] having gone through similar treatment.
Is the game more than 7 years old? If not, the laws are in place, if minori really has the money and/or willpower to actually do it… it would be one hell of an interesting legal battle. :lol: Even if it’s been over 7 years, it requires special authorization and some legal paperwork mumbo-jumbo.
This might just be my opinion, but considering how irrational Minori has been acting lately, you really think they’re even aware of such laws, much less make a distinction between copyright infringement and IP infringement? Not to mention, these “moral and immaterial” damages have been asserted as a result of pirated translations being released in countries that already have official tranlsations in bookstores (as is the case with HP and LotR). Really, the reasoning behind having laws pertaining to intellectual property and copyright is because without them, a company’s sales/businesses can be negatively affected–These laws don’t exist because of “morals” or “ethics”, just “commercialism”. How feasible is it to actually assert such laws if you have no intention of even making a commercial business where you’re suing?
Or even if they could, what makes you think they’d even have the capital to actually enforce it?
Truthfully? My gut tells me it’s a bluff. It would draw negative media attention, which minori claims to not want.
(Just reported from an anonymous viewer! Your kids are illegally translating a Japanese game that might be like RapeLay! Next on FOX News Hour!)
And plus it’s the Internet… how do they know what countries these people come from? What’s their street address? They have to serve them court orders somehow. They could probably get the registered webmaster: but that person may not even be the actual translator. If that’s the case, the webmaster can say he or she will abide by the court order… but that doesn’t mean the illegal translation stops…
IMHO, this is all a lose-lose position for minori. Makes them look bad, takes wasted $$$ to actually enforce, and may not even stop the translation.
But I don’t run minori… nor am part of - or financed - an eroge fanlation. So I’m mostly just watching it for the drama. 
First point - yes, you’re right. In actual fact, minori would have to be crazy to actually follow through on their threat. I’m with Narg - it’s got to be a bluff. BUT! It’s NOT because they wouldn’t win. It’s because getting the victory would destroy them financially and customer-relations-wise.
For the second point - You are incorrect. Copyright holders have the ability to pursue statutory damages specifically in order to be able to collect a lot of money without having to prove how much they were harmed.
To get statutory damages, all you have to do is prove the defendant infringed your copyrights. That’s it. And these are very scary numbers: Up to $150K theoretical maximum per incident if the court and the jury believes you willfully infringed. Even if you convince the court you were unaware that what you were doing was infinging, you’re still liable for a guaranteed minimum of $200 per incident.
And certainly each time the patch was downloaded would constitute a seperate count of copyright infringement. That would easily turn into a multimillion dollar jury verdict. (And yes, I know the judge reduced the verdict in the Thomas-Rasset case. Doesn’t matter. She’s still liable for tens of thousands per that revised decision (which the RIAA challenged again), and has lost years of her life and a vast sum on attorney’s fees.)
In my recollection, the fansub/scanlation groups have always acquiesced to the C&D orders, but I haven’t been following the fansub/scanlation scene all that closely as of late.
At least one company has issued a blanket statement that they don’t want any of their shows fansubbed. The more reputable groups have complied, but not all. Also many fansub groups leave old releases up even well after the show in question is licensed, or they don’t drop a series after it’s licensed. I think there might have been some that ignored a bona fide C&D, but I’m not sure.
Can’t say I agree with them charging people for translations and making a profit from it. On the other hand, I do like dark stuff (along with the lighter/romance VN’s) and they were, last I checked, one of the few groups actually translating dark ergo. Now if companies like Pixy, lilith or bishop were to say hire some fan translators and distribute their games that way, I have no problem paying some money for the games.
If you meet their unreasonably strict demands. Contacting them in person, at their office, negotiating only in Japanese (probably banning translators), and taking the game through the bloody ESRB!
Did you also know that you, Lancer-X, have been condemned as a criminal and software pirate by minori? By purchasing their games and installing them on a computer located outside of Japan, you have made and distributed illegal copies of copyrighted software. You’re just lucky that minori is kind and generous, they’re not going to sue your pants off this time, you filthy gaijin pirate scum. But next time… you’d better sleep with one eye open.
You’re talking about cases that occur within the US and involves material that’s officially produced/sold/distributed and is patented/copyrighted (IE: on record) within the United States, not copyrighted materials from some outside country.
You really think it’d make sense to enforce a US copyright law for materials copyrighted in Japan? I see no such scary theoretical maximums for cases of copyright violations between borders. Don’t get your domestic and international laws mixed up.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/bern … wo001.html
if you think the infringer will get lighter treatment simply because the copyright holder is in another country, you’ve got another thing coming
And if you think statutory damages won’t apply in the US just because the copyright isn’t registered in the US, guess again! Copyright can be registered after the fact
Um… contacting the company in person in their office in Japanese is generally how official game localization projects get started… I agree about the ESRB thing, but it’s most likely that minori is ill-informed about what the ESRB actually does. Reminds me of Peter Payne talking about the ESRB and saying that it was a huge hassle and in the end they know they’ll get a AO rating anyway.
See zalas’ post about the international copyright treaties that are in force. Yes, a Japanese company can enforce their copyrights in a US court - the same way the Harry Potter copyright was enforced. It’s much more complicated for the Japanese company than suing someone in Japan would be, but absolutely they can.
The reason nobody does it is pure and simple money. It costs an enormous amount to use the court system to shut down the infringers.
And just to be clear - I’m not trying to be an ass here … it’s just that you seem to misunderstand how the law on this works, and that can be very dangerous. The law really is that scary. Just because in practice, you don’t have to worry about it happening to you because the odds are so low … Jamie Thomas-Rasset found out the hard way that’s not always true.
In addition, the extractdata thing showed that minori is clearly not shy when it comes to litigation.
Im sorry, but if you haven’t noticed, I prefer to keep a level head over legal issues and look at these sorts of things in terms of what is likely to happen instead of what can happen. A law might look good on paper, but that’s only a small portion of the picture–Its actual effectiveness lies in whether external circumstances and the legal environment actually makes it allowable for such laws to be enforced or not. I mean, what good is an anti-workplace discrimination law if common environmental circumstances make it far too impractical for discriminated employees to file a discrimination suit most of the time? What’s so scary about a law about a law if most people are never in a position to enforce it? A law doesn’t mean shit if nobody can/wants to enforce it. I don’t mean to be an ass myself, but I don’t like to listen to fearmongerers, nor do I like to listen to people who cite legal statues while flat-out ignoring all the complex, time-consuming, and expensive work/red tape required to effectively enforce such things.
Oh sure, it might happen once every .00000001 percent of the time and it might even make the headlines. But do I have to treat that as anymore than an isolated exception and ignore the fact that it’s far too impractical for it to happen 99.9999999 percent of the time? If it’s often too expensive for even most large domestic companies to enforce such things, why should I believe for a second that a small foreign company like Minori even has a fleeting chance at doing so? Unless I see some sort of amendment to these laws that makes it far cheaper/easier for such things to be enforced (and companies actually start taking advantage of it), I see no reason why I, TLWiki, NNL, nor anyone else, should be losing any sleep, much less making kneejerk reactions over it.
Erm, the licensing fee is more a barrier than any of those. Their stated demands aren’t all that draconian (although the ESRB demand is a little silly). The real issue here is that minori may “talk the talk”, but will they “walk the walk”? I don’t think so. They say they’re open to localization negotiations, but everything they’ve said and done to this point suggests otherwise. Companies interested in the overseas market generally don’t ban foreigners from their website. As far as I’m concerned, minori’s most recent statement on their website is just a bunch of pretty rhetoric. They’re sick of foreign attention (especially when such attention causes social upheaval in Japan), so they’re trying to cut all connections between their games and the world outside Japan. They’re not shutting down fan translators because they’re worried about their IP (i.e., the potential to market their games overseas)–they’re shutting them down because they simply don’t want foreigners playing their games.
it’s not as if you’re banned from visualarts’ website, and even if you were, they’re certainly not interested in pursuing the overseas market. Yes, you’re not blocked specifically from key’s website, but we’re talking companies, not BRANDS.
I think minori is being perfectly honest; if foreigners are playing their games, they want a foreign company to put themselves on the line to defend these games against the likes of EQ so minori themselves don’t have to do it.