I was curious as to how Japanese companies view the many erotic doujinshi based on popular anime and game characters. Here in the U.S., companies like Disney and WB get wound up pretty tight when their intellectual properties are portrayed in such a manner, and they threaten artists’ sites with their legal departments. Are copyright laws in Japan more lax than here, or are erotic parodies better respected in Japan? Also, what is PP’s view of erotic fan art based on their products?
quote:
Originally posted by Sharpe:
I was curious as to how Japanese companies view the many erotic doujinshi based on popular anime and game characters. Here in the U.S., companies like Disney and WB get wound up pretty tight when their intellectual properties are portrayed in such a manner, and they threaten artists' sites with their legal departments. Are copyright laws in Japan more lax than here, or are erotic parodies better respected in Japan? Also, what is PP's view of erotic fan art based on their products?
Well, in Japan, companies usually more or less "accepts" that the doujins desists, because that the doujins helps to make whatever the doujin in question is based on more popular. It's the same with fanfiction based on popular TV-shows and the like in the US, I think, since the fanfics makes people who haven't seen the series interested in knowing more about it [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
If anyone made any fanfic of Peach Princess's games, I think that PeaPri would be happy that anyone appreciated their hard work enough to make a fanfic [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img] (but if you make a fanfic, you'd better not forget to give some credit to those who created it [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]. For example those who are making those X-change 2 doujins has linked to CROWDS homepage and calls them "X-change 2's father" (sort of)). But since both doujins and fanfics in a way are illegal, the companies cannot support them openly.
[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 01-03-2002).]
Even so-called “fan-oriented” companies like Working Designs have threatened to sue American doujinshi artists for using their characters. I think it’s unfortunate that America is not at a stage where doujinshi can be accepted (mostly due to the sloppy, messy, and confusing copyright laws).
Kumiko, but no guidelines exist in the US, and even if a group of people decided to put one together, the big corporations are never going to agree to it. Companies like Working Designs simply are too profit-oriented to respect the work of doujinshi cirles, and let’s not get started on the larger companies like Warner Bros. or Disney who don’t want any sort of R-rated works based on their characters released period.
Of course there have been some American doujinshi released, based on stuff like Dirty Pair, but they’re few and far in between.
Ah, yes, the classic “free speech” defense. “This is a free country–we can express whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want!” And if that includes mangling someone else’s characters, well, that’s what “free speech” is all about. And people wonder why fanfiction is so disapproved by the creative masses…
Well i’m aware of that, I’m just saying that it would be nice if American society would come to a point where fan works are allowed in the similar sense that it’s allowed in Japan. Using the excuse that artists should strive for original works doesn’t stop the fact that people and artists want to create fan works as homage to their favorite works.
We’d need companies that are more respecting, such as those musicians who don’t care if people pirate their music - people doing so help spread that band’s music, hence they don’t care, because they’re not profit-oriented. If companies were like that, and they allowed fan works because it shows homage and popularity of the original work, then we might actually see a legitimate doujinshi world in the US (and I think it might happen eventually because of all the talented artists appearing and the greater acceptance of japanese animation and comic works - though probably not in my lifetime).