Category: Media

Some United States. Stop one: New Jersey

As Joe mentioned the other day, I am back in New Jersey for the time being. I’ve just noticed how many weeks it has actually been since I’ve updated anything here, between a couple of weeks of travel, a couple of weeks of being extremely ill, a couple of weeks of playing tourguide to my mom and her boyfriend in Japan, and a couple of weeks of reading and getting graduate school related application stuff together-and topping it all off with trans-hemispheric relocation, a birthday, and various other odds and ends I have completely neglected this space here. So, while I have a few things that I want to write about, and a large number of photographs I want to post from my last several weeks in Japan (for this year anyway), in honor of my return to good old New Jersey, below are some choice quotes from a book of travel writing by the late humorist Irvin S. Cobb entitled Some United States (1926) purchased just this afternoon from the $1 shelves outside the famous Strand bookstore in The City. As the title of this post implies, today I bring you excerpts from the chapter on the great state of New Jersey.

CHAPTER XII

NEW JERSEY

Just Behind Those Billboards

After you cross by train through the tube under the North River, which is so-called because it is really the Hudson River and edges Manhattan Island on the west and bears no relation whatsoever to the northern boundaries of anything at all, and, this safely done, emerge from the tunnel mouth on the farther shore, you will see a large number of billboards. Well, New Jersey is just behind those billboards.

[…]

In billboards, New Jersey, regardless of comparative areas, leads all the states of the Union. I’m not sure but what she leads all the habitable globe. Next to the commuters, billboards constitute her most conspicuous product. The commuters come and go. In the morning they hurry away to New York of Philadelphia to earn their livings and in the evening they return to bed down for the night. Thus daily they come alternately under the head, first, of exports, and then of imports.

An orthodox New Jersey commuter is easily to be recognized in New York. He wears and imaginary string tied around a mental thumb to make him remember not to forget to call up the employment agency and notify the new cook who is going out to his place to spend two or three days with the family, possibly even staying the full week out, to meet him at the station for the 5:03; and she may recognize him by the worried lines in his face and the fact that he will be carrying parts for the lawnmower.

[…]

Whenever I have occasion to traverse the State of New Jersey by rail, I take advantage of the opportunity to reflect upon our outstanding institution of billboards as it presents itself to the purview of the traveler. Regarding billboards and billboarders , I have gone to the trouble of compiling some very interesting figures.

For instance, if all the billboards which desecrate the scenic areas of America were piled one on top of another, allowing twelve inches of horizontal thickness for each billboard, the total number would form a column one hundred and fourteen miles high; and to soak these properly for burning would require ninety thousand barrels of grade-A kerosene; and then when some philanthropist had applied the match, the flames of the bonfire would cast a glow visible as far away as Bermuda, and in every community in this country where people have learned to value the beauties of unblemished nature, there would be public dancing in the streets and a holiday for the school children would be declared.

Again, let us consider for a moment an even more agreeable summarization: If all the billboard art directors who go to and from in the land choosing decorative vista with a view to marring them with their billboards, where laid out side by side with lilies in their hands, it would make a very enjoyable spectacle for the rest of us provided only we were sure that one of them was in a trance.

While I speed athware New Jersey I frequently play a favorite game of mine. I call it Billboards. [Ed: his billboard obsession becomes troubling in its fetishization. Enough on that topic.]

For, when all is said and done and disregarding what figure New Jersey may have cut in the earlier days of this Republic and, before that, in the Colonial time, the question next arises: What now is she? And the answer is that she is become the smudgy and begrimed passageway that separates two great metropolii. [Ed: I know for a fact that Joe would disagree about the characterization of Philadelphia as a great metropolis.] Lying between them and holding them apart, she takes their overflow and they suck out her substances as they long ago sopped up her personality. The semicolon of the Eastern seaboard–that’s modern New Jersey. Never mind what she is commercially. Historically, she’s a cow that went dry about the time the boys got back from the Spanish War. An she has been dry every since. And from present indications will continue to be dry.

[…]

All of which, I claim, helps to explain why New Jersey is one of the joke states. It is not well for a state to be, by national estimation, a standing joke. Kansas once was one and it took her long years to live it down. [Ed: Kansas has worked hard in recent years to reclaim that title.] Arkansas was one and has not yet entirely recovered. Connecticut was one and because of traditional memories lingering in the popular mind of wooden nutmegs and shoe-peg oats, will never entirely get over it. [Ed: I have 0% idea what those references mean. I suppose that means Connecticut HAS gotten over it.] Missouri, for a spell, had a close call with being one, but lacking all else, the state which foaled a Mark Twain would have a title to immortal grandeur on that sole account.

New Jersey still is one and a hopeless patient. For half a century references to Jersey justice, Jersey skeeters and Jersey lightning made her the football of the jesters. [Ed: And all the more embarrassing for us, having invented football here.] As a matter of fact, and giving them due credit, her mosquitoes must sharpen their bills yet finer ere they may hope to compete with the Long Island variety. And in these piping Prohibition days her homemade applejack, potent though it may be, stands comparison with the bootleggers’ best. It may give you the blind staggers, but the blindness is a temporary affliction.

[…]

With time the symptoms have changed, but the case remains incurable. For to-day New Jersey is still a joke state. Outsiders think of her as the State where they suffer from billboarditis and ride on the Erie and harbor the corporations and broadcast the bedtime tales. They forget her material contributions to the national prosperity. And who can blame them?

[…]

But just look at the blame thing now! Coal tipples and garbage dumps and freight tracks and smelters and refineries invade the marshes, and the birds are mostly fled away, and for wild life the mosquitoes are left. The elm-shaded towns where once upon a time future statesmen were born and patriots grew up and writers ripened their art, have become clamorous, cindered, smoky factory places crowded with transcendently ugly workshops, the dirty, homely streets swarming with alien workers quacking a jargon of tongues fit to eclipse Babel’s Tower itself.

It is hard to believe that here, long ago, poets dreamed their dreams and painters plied deft brushes and masters in statecraft dealt masterfully with the politics of their time; that once upon a time great publicists and great orators dwelt in these spots. It is impossible to believe that any such ever again will abide here.

[…]

In all of manufacturing  New Jersey the most agreeable sight, I think, is the sign on the road to Pompton which says you are now leaving Paterson. When I get that far I stop and give thanks.

Reactions, Speculation on Matsuoka’s Suicide

As noted before, the beset agricultural minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide yesterday. Today I want to show you some people’s reactions:

First off, Matsuoka himself left a whopping eight handwritten suicide notes, addressed to various people including the prime minister and “the people of Japan and everyone in my support club.”

The police have only released a fraction of the notes to the public so far, and they shed little light on why he decided to take the easy way out:

“People of Japan and everyone in my support club… I am very sorry and take the blame for everything. I apologize for causing so much trouble. Please take care of things after I’m gone.” And another note states: “My wife knows the circumstances behind this. Please don’t look for the whys and wherefores. Please be gentle.”

Martin Fackler of the New York Times explains for the American audience “Suicides have a long and often romanticized history in Japan, where they have been seen as a face-saving escape from public humiliation.” This sentiment is familiar to anyone living in Japan, and the suicide notes seem to back up that face-saving motivation. However, it should be noted that Matsuoka is the first serving cabinet member in Japan’s postwar history to kill himself, and only the 7th serving Diet member. While some Diet members have killed themselves over scandal (Shokei Arai in 1998 among them, who took his own life over getting caught in several stock scandals), some were due to terminal illness (See Asahi for details). And while Matsuoka may have tried to conjure up images of Japan’s face-saving suicide culture, there aren’t actually so many people who (at least overtly) sympathize with his choice to die rather than face the facts.

To get a quick perspective from both sides of the debate, today’s Asahi editorial notes: “Wasn’t there another way, such as stepping down as MAFF Minister or leaving your Diet seat?” and later “We do not intend to speak ill of the dead, but [revealing the facts and starting over if you are in the wrong] is the right way to take responsibility as a Diet member and a cabinet minister.”

The more right-leaning Yomiuri takes a different tack, portraying Matsuoka’s death as a “tragedy” somehow caused by the “psychological pressure of this string of problems” that could happen again if political fund accounting regulations are not reformed adequately. This sort of argument strikes me as patently irresponsible and implies that Matsuoka’s death was the opposition’s fault for, as they put it, using the political funds issue as a “political football” as opposed to the truth, which was that Matusoka’s suicide was a personal choice and no one’s fault but his own.

And there are still other theories as to why he killed himself. One rumor proffered by freelance journalist Takashi Kitaoka (citing “police” sources) is that Matsuoka was in 1 billion yen in debt, and that even the money he gained from immense utility expenses and political funds from forestry contractors would not pay for the interest.

The opposition parties (including the DPJ, Communists, and Social Democrats) have taken an almost uniform line that PM Abe’s protection of Matsuoka actually contributed to his death. Anonymous blogger Kikko explains the reasoning behind this:

Now the Abe cabinet, with its ministers encountering one scandal after another, is now called “the most miserably bad cabinet in history.” The irresponsibility of Shinzo Abe, who thinks of nothing but protecting his own position, has at last taken a person’s life. Minister Matsuoka, whose scandals and crimes, from the “something something recycled water” office expenses scandal, to his connections with organized crime, to the political funds scandal, and finally the “J-GREEN” government-led bid-rigging incident, had reportedly told people close to him that he wanted to quit. But Abe would not let him quit for the sole reason that “if any more cabinet ministers are made to quit, the prime minister’s responsibility for appointing them will be questioned.” In the Diet, Matsuoka was subjected to a fully-mobilized attack from the opposition, questioned harshly by police on the bid rigging incident, and even people within the LDP were calling for his resignation. Yet he was not allowed to quit even though he wanted to, all to save face for Shinzo Abe.

Pushed into a corner, Matsuoka in the end took his own life. In other words, he was forced to kill himself for the convenience of Shinzo Abe. Despite the fact that Abe’s responsibility for appointing him was obvious, what with the discovery of so much improper and illegal activity, Abe protected his own position by not letting Matsuoka quit, and this is the cause that pushed Matsuoka toward suicide. Abe should be questioned aggressively on this. Many people are killing themselves due to the growing societal disparity caused by bad policies, but for Abe to cause a suicide in his own cabinet just shows how selfish, incompentent, and irresponsible he is, and I’d like him to quit immediately.

Add notoriously corrupt (yet still alive, showing there is another way) politician Muneo Suzuki (formerly of LDP, now of the Hokkaido regional “Shinto Daichi” party) to the list of “it was Abe’s fault” proponents. As a former partner in crime, Suzuki speaks with the perspective of someone who really knows what was going on in his head:

The last time I saw [Matsuoka] was when we met on the night of May 24. I made a suggestion to him: “I am going to question you at the Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration tomorrow, so why don’t you apologize to the people from the heart? Your explanations that you are following the law and acting properly based on the law are not understood by the public. You should bow low on the ground before them and frankly apologize by saying that you did not fulfill your responsiblity to explain yourself.” But he lamely replied: “I thank you for the advice, but my orders from the Diet Affairs Committee, the top, are to stay quiet for now. I can only follow that.”

I asked him again: “This issue will go on whatever you do, so I think you should hurry up and honestly explain to the people.” He smiled and said: “Suzuki-sensei, you’re the only person who says that.”

I feel like I understand Matsuoka’s heart. Up to the day I was arrested, Matsuoka called me to express his support almost every day.

And some are speculating that there are some members of the farm “tribe” who must be relieved that Matsuoka will never be forced to testify as to what he knows about the various dealings that go one with the network of agriculture-related publicly owned corporations. His cryptic messages also show that he kept quiet to the end.

In all, the man whose career was made on smart, if shady, political decisions seems to have miscalculated the effect his death would have on the political scene. Or perhaps he knew exactly what sort of bind it would put the Abe administration in. Unfortunately, “the people” will probably never find out the truth, partly because Abe has declined to investigate the matter.

A quick look at online advertising through the lens of America

Slate wonders if online ad companies are worth what companies like Google and Microsoft are paying for them:

Last month, big establishment online company Google bought online-ad firm DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. Last week, big establishment advertising agency WPP bought online-ad firm 24/7 Real Media for $649 million in cash. The next day, big establishment tech company Microsoft bought online-ad firm aQuantive for $6 billion in cash.

…this may be less a case of the market being irrationally ahead of the industry’s economic reality and more a case of the market being behind rational expectations for the industry.

Television, magazines, and newspapers may be hanging on because they are more powerful media for reaching the consumers companies most want to reach. But I suspect they’re hanging on for another demographic reason. Advertising is supposed to be a with-it, hot, trendy, tomorrow-based industry. But at root, the business of advertising is one of allocating capital, not cooking up clever jingles. And the people who make the decisions about how to allocate that $300-odd billion in capital each year—CEOs of consumer products companies, Fortune 500 executive vice presidents, media buyers, brand managers, agency heads—well, they’re old. It takes time to climb the corporate ladders to get to the rungs where really important decisions are made. Of course, these people, most of whom came of age as consumers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, use the Internet, spend a lot of time on it, and buy stuff on it. But they don’t understand it intuitively the way the younger crowd does. Do you think the CEOs of Ford, Citigroup, or Procter & Gamble are uploading photos to their MySpace pages, downloading music, and blogging?

…the question for people who invest in the stocks of online-advertising companies—as Google, WPP, and Microsoft have just done—isn’t just whether online ads are the way to reach consumers today. No, the question is whether online ads will be among the best ways to reach consumers in five and 10 years, when today’s twentysomethings will be buying cars and houses and kitchen appliances and pharmaceuticals. More important, in 2012 it’s possible to imagine that the brand managers and executives responsible for making advertising-spending decisions will be people who grew up with the medium, who didn’t need a consultant to tell them how it works. It’s a reasonable expectation that online advertising will continue to gain market share and that more and more capital will slosh into this sector. The big companies paying top dollar for online ad firms have just bought some expensive buckets.

The points of this article, plus or minus a few details, could be easily made about Japan, with the exception that Japan’s traditional media are much more nervous about aggressively engaging the Internet. I’ll go through them as we proceed to give you what you need, but for now suffice to say that Japan is awash in new technology, the young folks are growing up as avid users, but the managers at the advertisers and the agencies are too old to really get it. But as in the US, the future growth in Internet ads is understood, and traditional companies like Dentsu are realizing that they need to follow where people’s eyes are.

Copyright Term Extension in Japan: Balance shifting *against* extension?

Nikkei PC Magazine reports:

Arguments for Caution at Cultural Affairs Agency Deliberation Council on Copyright Term Extension Issue
May 16, 2007

The Subcommittee for the Protection and Use of Past Copyrighted Works Etc. of the Cultural Deliberation Council’s Copyright Commission, an advisory body to the Commissioner of the Cultural Affairs Agency on the copyright term extension issue, held its 3rd meeting of 2007 on May 16.

Continuing from the previous meeting, a hearing was held consisting of 17 people including stakeholders engaging in business activities related to copyright. This time, however, moderate-thinking lawyers and academics with a background in copyright made multiple arguments against term extension.

“Cases of Copyright Inheritance are Rare”

Professor Masaru Itoga (Library Information Science) of Keio University, pointed out that gaining permission to use copyrighted materials will become more difficult by extending the copyright term from 50 years after the death of the rights holder to 70 years. “With the exception of famous works, cases in which surviving family members inherit copyrights are rare. Also, finding the addresses of corporations is easy, but the contact information of individual rightsholders is not made public. If the copyright term is extended, there is a danger that there will be an increase in the number of works that are not passed on after the rights holder’s death and it is unclear who holds the rights to them.”

[snip issue of “free use labeling”]

“The International Balance of Copyright is -600 Billion Yen Annually”

Attorney Kensaku Fukui commented that while the US, Europe, and Japan have extended copyright term repeatedly, copyright term has never been rolled back, and called for caution on a hasty extension: “The effects from term extension will felt by posterity semi-permanently. I hope for and will watch carefully for a debate that will stand up to historical investigation, showing who and with what proof did people favor, oppose, or remain silent on extension.”

He went on to question: “Those in favor of term extension argue that if a database for copyrighted works is built then past works can be easily accessed. I think there is merit in that idea, but it would be difficult to create a database comprehensive enough to cancel out the problems posed by extension. The list of authors tops 790,000 just based on the archives of the National Diet Library. Extend that to overseas works and a database would grow exponentially in size if the copyright term is extended to 70 years retroactively. Are we going to place this cost on the Japanese people?”

Fukui also commented on the fact that according to Bank of Japan statistics, Japan’s international balance of payments for copyrighted works is negative 600 billion yen annually (meaning that more copyrighted work is imported than exported) and is growing year by year: “If prewar Western works’ copyrights continue to be extended, then over-importing and the international uneven distribution of intellectual property will become permanent. There are those who argue that ‘extension is necessary to protect the works of Haruki Murakami or Japanese animation,’ but these works’ copyrights will last for at least another 30 years. The decision to extend works such as those should be made based on the situation 30 years from now, and it is no reason to extend copyright term now. I think we should stop immediately trying to find a way to cooperate whenever we are told something by the US and Europe.”

“Economic effects of term extension no greater than 1-2%”

Keio University Professor Tatsuo Tanaka (Econometrics) claimed that the economic effects of term extension would be small and that the rational decision would be to promote use of the public domain. Tanaka explained his doubtful outlook: “Citing books with past case studies, the increase in revenue for rights holders due to copyright term extension would be only 1-2% of all copyright revenue. Will raising royalties from 10% to 10.2% actually boost creativity?”

Meanwhile, arguing that the term extension is set aside would allow works to be used freely in the public domain, Tanaka concluded that not extending copyright would be better for society: “Businesses that promote new uses by exploiting the public domain are increasing. For example, Aozora Bunko boasts a lineup of 6000 titles, and the top 1000 titles are viewed by 4.5 million people per year. Cheap DVDs sell 1.8 million copies per year. There are also many examples where works whose copyright terms have expired, such as Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Ayaka Hirahara’s Jupiter, have been recreated. On blogs and social networking sites, 10 million average citizens are creating and transmitting content. The public domain is the lifeblood of creativity for the next generation, and forms the basis for the average person’s creations.”

Other participants arguments’ included “I am negative on term extension, but even if the term is extended, I hope that the part of the term beyond 50 years will require a notification and that the term will not be categorically extended.” (Keio Univ. Associate Professor Kim Jong Kun [金正勲]), “As a part of a system for notification of intent, I would like a free use label to be created that indicates permission to freely use work in a museum.” (Akira Inoue, Director General of the National Science Museum)….. “Ryonosuke Akutagawa worried whether people would read his work 50 years in the future. The greatest hope of a creator is to have his/her work read by a great many people. Extending copyright term would decrease the opportunities for works to be used and lead to a cultural loss.” (Authoer/poet Chico Ryomi).

Still others’ contended: “For orchestras, the burden from usage fees they will pay to JASRAC due to term extension is a serious issue.” (Japan Orchestra Federation Standing Director Naomoto Okayama), “It is almost inconceivable that software will be used 50 years after [its copyright holder dies], making term extension unrealistic.” (Association of Copyright for Computer Software Executive Director Hiroshi Kubota)

Others Argue “We Should Lead the International Current”, “National Cultural Assets will be Lost”

Meanwhile, there were also arguments in favor of term extension, mostly from officials from rights holder groups. Hide Ikuno, Executive Director of the Recording Industry Association of Japan, noted that “copyright term for records is already greater than 50 years in 21 countries. Japan has the second largest record sales in the world, and is in a position to lead the international current.”

Kazuhiko Fukuodera, standing director of the Japan Artist Association, argued: “Edvard Munch is still copyrighted in the West but is public domain in Japan. When that happened, dolls parodying “The Scream” went on sale. We should not do things that are rude to creators. In 2009, Taikan Yokoyama’s copyrights will become public domain. The Taikan Yokoyama Memorial Center’s operating costs are taken care of in part by copyright fees, and if they become public domain the operations of the center could become difficult, leading to a loss of national cultural assets.

(by Kanto Kaneko)

Comment: Some things to be learned from/noted about this article:

1. Those who will benefit from copyright extension in Japan are overwhelmingly foreign rightsholders, such as the Beatles, Elvis, Disney and other popular foreign artists/movies.
2. The arguments for copyright extension, when shown in the light of day, are extremely weak (lead by following?!) and hold no legal water unlike the previous extension to 50 years to comply with the Berne convention.
3. The Japanese system of public hearings before advisory committees long before any cabinet decisions are made or laws passed can work much much better than, say, the American system in which copyrights can be extended through the sheer political will of Sonny Bono’s widow and Disney. This did not stop the copyright term for movies from being extended to 70 years after the rightsholder’s death due to foreign pressure from the US etc, but an increasingly copyright-conscious Japanese public may just save Japan as a bastion of consumer-friendly copyright term.
4. The bulk of the Japanese media, as major rightsholders themselves, spew endless anti-piracy, pro-rights management propaganda, though as you can see this is not always the case as there are opposing business/consumer interests involved. I’ll try and locate a good example sometime soon.

Strange confession note by boy who sawed off his mother’s head and brought it to the police

A terrible crime was committed in Fukushima, Japan recently:

17-year-old boy turns self in with severed head / High schooler tells police he killed mother
The Yomiuri Shimbun

A 17-year-old high school student was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of killing his mother after turning himself in at a police station in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, carrying her severed head, police said.

According to the police, the boy, in his third year at a prefectural high school, came to Aizuwakamatsu Police Station at about 7 a.m. on Tuesday with the head in his school bag. He told the police he had killed his mother at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The police went to the boy’s apartment in the city, where they found the headless body of the mother.

The boy was quoted by the police as saying: “I killed her by myself at home early Tuesday morning while she was asleep. I wanted to kill somebody, whoever it was.”

Later it was revealed that the boy also sawed off his mother’s arm. After the crime, he went into an Internet cafe, watched a Beastie Boys DVD, and apparently wrote the following note (apparently leaked by police):

I have committed a crime that should never be committed.

–What was your motive?

A reason? Just because.

–Other people won’t be satisfied with that!

Well if I had to say something, I guess it’s a form of self-expression.

–You had no other way to express yourself?

Maybe not.

–Don’t you feel any regret?

Not right now. I feel relieved. But I’m sure I’ll probably regret it later.

–What will you do after this?

I will go have myself charged with the crime.

–Isn’t that a foregone conclusion?

Oh, you might be right. But at the very least there is no crime I desire in reality [Note: this line was a little hard to figure out. The Japanese is reproduced below:]
　あーたしかにそうかもしれません。でも現実でだけはボクの望む罪はないと思いますが。

–Do you feel like continuing on?

Not really.

–If you keep going, what will you do next?

I don’t know since I’ve just been acting on my whims.

–Don’t you feel like killing yourself?

No, that would be scary. Plus I promised I wouldn’t kill myself.

–Who did you promise?

I don’t want to say.

–Why not?

Just because.

–Aren’t you being evasive by saying “just because”?

Perhaps. I’ve always been running away like that anyway.

–Any last words?

Thank you for putting up with my nonsense all this time.
(Thanks to the Daily Yomiuri and ZAKZAK)

Comment: This is a sad tragedy that seems to contain similarities to both Columbine (troubled teenager who couldn’t make it through his last year of high school), the Virginia Tech slayings (weapons bought beforehand, a pre-planned media strategy and a clear “self-expression” motive) combined with the all-too-common Japanese mother-son tension. The reports that I’ve seen so far seem to regard this crime as a total aberration by a troubled youth, which it is. But it looks like this sort of thing could be prevented. It’s been reported that it was known that he had been skipping school and a doctor had already diagnosed him as “mentally unstable.” As hard as it is to rein in rebellious teenagers, it’s sad that there wasn’t more done to try and help (or at least medicate) someone with clear mental problems before he became a danger.

Another Casualty of JASRAC’s Fun Police

I recently came across this sad story in my referrals:

Live music spots are disappearing one by one in Japan!
2006-11
I am a live Jazz fan, and often go to Jazz clubs in my home town. Recently I visited one of my favorite clubs and was informed that live jazz was to be canceled at the end of the month.

I couldn’t believe it, and asked why this was going to happen. The owner replied “JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, equivalent to ASCAP) ordered retrospective fee payments for the last 10 years of the club’s operation. There’s no way I can afford to pay, so I’ve decided to stop live music”. The JASRAC representative then presented a scrap of newspaper with a story reporting a recent lawsuit and subsequent closure of another Jazz club that had fought, and lost, a similar situation. In the end, however, the owner decided to submit to JASRAC’s demands and pay the fees.

JASRAC also refused to negotiate future licensing costs, and stated that a fixed fee must be charged regardless of how many live performances are held. The club could have one live show each week, or a show every day of the year, and the cost would be the same. JASRAC also refuses to reveal how they calculate fees for each club.

In Japan, NHK(National publicly funded television) fees must be paid by all people that own TVs. However some people manage to avoid paying fees, are unaware of fees, or simply slip though NHK’s administrative cracks. When these people are discovered, NHK usually just asks these people to begin payments from the next month onwards. JASRAC, however, demands payments for the past 10 years.

Does JASRAC truly protect the rights of musicians? I often by CDs from musicians playing at live Jazz clubs. I believe live Jazz promotes CD sales and helps artists succeed.

It’s just appalling that JASRAC can nitpick and police even the most minor activities. The hyper-aggressive protection of intellectual property is not just limited to JASRAC, mind you: Johnny’s Talent Agency (the promoters of SMAP etc) fiercely guard their superstars, a practice that leads to odd rivalries and ridiculous news like Takuya Kimura refusing a major movie award for no apparent reason. Disney is also particularly heavy-handed. I read (on 2ch mind you) that Disney once forced a school to remove an image of Mickey Mouse from their pool that was to be used in an event. How can a culture of openness, ambition and imagination flourish when there’s an environment that often punishes even modest forms of creativity?

Dentsu in the News, Part 1: The Good News

Lots of Dentsu-related stories in the pipeline these days. But first, the good news:

* Dentsu reports revenue exceeding 2 trillion yen, but sees slower growth ahead

From Asahi:

On May 11, Dentsu reported 2.939 trillion yen, or a 6.7% boost, in consolidated revenue for the 2006 fiscal year, the first time the company’s total has ever topped 2 trillion. Revenue in the major media (TV, newspapers, magazines, radio) all slightly dropped, but ticket sales for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which was undertaken by a Dentsu subsidiary, pushed up the total.

Operating profit (which is mentioned last in the Asahi report) grew at a similar pace of 6.9% (30.6 billion yen or approx $1.7 billion). To compare, OmnicomGroup, the largest Madison Avenue ad company, posted $11.3 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in operating profit.

Revenue in the 4 mass media, which make up 65% of the company’s non-consolidated profits (or 48% of consolidated revenue, which would mean that the Dentsu parent company’s total of 2.169 trillion make up 73% of total Dentsu group revenue), dipped 0.7% to 1.410 trillion yen.

A surprising note in this profit announcement is that Internet ads are not Dentsu’s biggest growth area, as earlier reports from Dentsu might have seemed to indicate. Internet ad growth of 14.8% (21.5 billion yen) lost out to outdoor ads, such as train ads, grew 19.2% (43 billion yen) with the rise of ads coordinated with web content (infrared bar codes, search keywords). Note, however, that these two areas remain small compared to Dentsu’s traditional businesses. However, Dentsu is predicting huge growth in the Internet sector in general, and sees its share in the Net ad market going from a present 15% to 20% by the end of FY 2009.

But the overall outlook for Dentsu is for slower growth, for reasons which an AP’s report goes into more detail about (unsurprising for an article aimed at investors):

Dentsu, the world’s fifth-biggest advertising company behind Omnicom Group , WPP Group , Interpublic Group and Publicis, said growth might also be held back by a wave of mergers among its client base.

The company, whose rivals in Japan include Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc. and Asatsu-DK Inc., forecast group operating profit to rise 1.6 percent to 63.8 billion yen ($532.2 million) in the current business year to March 2008 on sales of 2.107 trillion yen, up 0.6 percent.

The profit estimate is in line with the consensus of 64.2 billion yen from a poll of 13 analysts by Reuters Estimates, but the forecast for sales growth is decidedly below the expected growth rate of about 2 percent for the Japanese economy.

The seemingly conservative forecast also comes with Japanese corporate profits at a record high.

“We are always told that our forecasts are conservative, but one factor probably at play here is the fading correlation between corporate profits and the economy on one side and growth in advertising spending,” Dentsu Managing Director Setsuo Kamai told a news conference.

Kamai said the trend could be explained by a handful of factors including booming industry consolidation in Japan, which leads to fewer advertisers, and a move by an increasing number of companies to lower costs by combining their brands.

For 2007/08, Dentsu expects its revenues to get a boost from the IAAF World Championships in Athletics Osaka 2007, elections in Japan and the Tokyo Motor Show, but no event on schedule is likely to match last year’s soccer World Cup in Germany.
…
Dentsu logged strong revenue gains to the information and technology, food and retail sectors, which offset declines to makers of cosmetics and toiletries, producers of home appliances and electronics, and consumer finance firms.

Speaking of profits, Hakuhodo just posted its first loss (due to lower than expected real estate revenue and dips in auto ads and government PR work) since converting to holding company status in 2003. It posted a 2% loss in revenue (1.884 trillion yen) and a 1% loss in operating profits (24.4 billion yen). Bad news for Hakuhodo, good news for Dentsu.

A new president will be leading Dentsu:

Dentsu to name Takashima president
Kyodo News

Dentsu Inc. is set to appoint Executive Vice President Tatsuyoshi Takashima as president of Japan’s biggest advertising agency, while the current president, Tateo Mataki, will become chairman, company sources said Saturday.

He is expected to accelerate a shift in Dentsu’s business base from newspapers and television to relatively new media such as the Internet by continuing the efforts of Mataki, who aggressively concluded capital and operational tieups with startup companies specializing in Net advertising.

Meanwhile, Dentsu is consolidating some of its various Net ad subsidiaries (in the affiliate advertising section [similar to the Amazon Associates program]) to form a more unified strategy:

Dentsu to Merge, Amalgamate Action Clip
May 10, 2007

Dentsu and Cyber Communications (CCI, a member of the Dentsu Group) announced that they intend to merge Dentsu subsidiary Action Clip and CCI subsidiary Criteria Communications.

CCI will continue to exist but will amalgamate the two companies in a cash tender offer. The ban on cash tender offers to shareholders in the case of an amalgamation merger that absorbs the target company was lifted as of May 1.

Action Clip’s affiliate operations will be united with Criteria’s advertisement distribution network with the goal of consolidating the Dentsu Group’s affiliate business.

Japan’s obsolete songs, part 1 of ?

“My Pager Won’t Ring*” the opening theme from a 1993 TV drama series. Thanks to whoever posted it and thanks in advance to the good folks at TV Tokyo for not suing the crap out of me for using their ultra-dated content.

For a more recent technology-centric piece of pop culture, may I direct you to Atlanta rapper TI’s 2005 hit “What You Know” which prominently features “chirping” the two-way walkie talkie function currently popular in US cell phones. I get the feeling it too will seem dated 14 years from now, though the smoothly-epic synth-heavy production will live on forever (as, I suspect, will jokes about “getting a midget pregnant”).

* This literal translation doesn’t quite convey the loneliness implied by the song title. Perhaps a better interpretation would be “My Pager Won’t Ring (And I Miss You)”

Happy retirement, Bob Barker!

The Washington Post is reporting that Bob Barker is stepping down as host of the Price is Right after 35 years. It’s a sad day. That used to be my favorite show as a kid, when I stayed home “sick” from school as often as I could convince my mother. The reporter puts it well:

Just the sound of it feels, somehow nostalgically, like being in bed with the flu. (“Come on down!” roars the announcer, Rich Fields — who replaced the late Rod Roddy in 2003, who replaced Johnny Olson in 1986 — as you beg some 7Up and toast to stay on down.) There is the sound of it starting at 11 a.m., over those gooey-warm CBS airwaves, just when the day is still technically young and yet already somehow wasted. It feels like skipping class again and again, the MWF 10:30 section of Lit 125: The Emerging Self.

And this is so true:

“Think about it this way,” Dobkowitz offers. “The median age in this country is 36 or 37, which means half the country does not know life without Bob Barker. You’re young, you go out in the world and all the new things happen — jobs, marriage. But turn on the set and Bob’s doing the television show, and it’s all okay.”

Though I’m no longer around to catch the show, I had kind of taken Bob Barker’s existence on mid-morning TV for granted. He will be sorely missed!

Japan Times, Foreign Office organ?

In an 1937 article from the journal Far Eastern Survey, I saw The Japan Times described as a “Foreign Office organ.” There is no mention on the Japan Times’ own history timeline they had ever been anything other than an independent media organization, but a quick Google search turned up this article on the very topic from the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. The following paragraph summarizes the questions discussed in this article.

Here’s what we need to know about The Japan Times: How close was the paper to official Japan, and to what extent did it serve as a mouthpiece of the Japanese government (in itself neither unusual nor categorically inadvisable at times of international tension)? Closely connected to these questions is a third: Were The Japan Times’ acquisitions in October and December 1940 of Japan’s two best-known English-language newspapers, The Japan Advertiser and The Japan Chronicle, motivated purely by the desire for total media control and the need to speak with one voice through one conduit to the Western world, or were other plans afoot? A fourth, more speculative, question is whether The Japan Times could have served a more temperate purpose during the crisis in U.S.-Japan negotiations in 1940-41.

The author discusses the perennial problem of where to draw the line between journalists’ access to government officials and inappropriate cooperation or agreement with them – an issue recently being discussed with great frequency in the United States following various scandals – and concludes that “the reputation of The Japan Times as an official mouthpiece may well have been earned in its early years, but it was less deserved in early Showa, when most other newspapers not only took their lead from government sources but zealously exceeded official enthusiasm for expansion in East Asia and for the cause of ‘Holy War.’ ” This statement includes the period of time – 1937 – in which the reference I discussed at the beginning of the post was published.

On the other hand, the Japan Times’ acquisition of the two rival English language
newspapers in October and December of 1940 was likely orchestrated by Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke, so as “to have an organ close to the Foreign Office in which their opposition to the Military Party could be expressed.”

However, Matsuoka’s access to the Japan Times, and hence his ability to promulgate pro-diplomacy messages to the foreign media through Japan’s sole surviving English language newspaper was eliminated in July 1941, when “the second Konoe Cabinet resigned in order to form a third Cabinet for the express purpose of jettisoning Matsuoka.” (Matsuoka had been trying to persuade the cabinet to abandon the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement and join Germany’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union. This would also have complicated the ongoing negotiations with the United States for the purpose of avoiding war between the two countries, in which Matsuoka was attempting to trade a withdrawal from continental China in exchange for recognition of Manchukuo and a guarantee of safety for trade routes of resources through the South Pacific.) This left publisher Go Satoshi to pen editorials which ended up inflaming relations between Japan and the Allied powers, although it is unclear whether this was at the behest of the subsequent Foreign Ministers or not.

The article concludes that “The Japan Times (until Matsuoka’s fall from grace) made a doomed but valiant effort to set up a rational, internationalist alternative to the bellicose rumblings emanating from the General Staff and the Foreign Ministry,” but also brings attention to the fact that after Matsuoka’s departure the paper’s editorials, written by Go, contributed to the climate of mistrust that led to the breakdown of negotiations, which eventually caused Japan’s attack against Pearl Harbor. While the Japan Times of today (which in my experience has a generally liberal and pro-internationalist slant) should hardly be criticized for the ways in which it was used as a vehicle of propaganda during wartime under an imperialist regime, I imagine that the readers of this blog will be as interested as I was to learn a bit about the history of a newspaper whose articles all of us read with regularity. Now I am curious to know if the Japan Times’ close relations with the Foreign Ministry continued after the war, and how the country’s primary English language news source may have been used by the occupying American authorities and post-occupation government of Japan.

On a tangential note, Matsuoka Yosuke was arrested and indicted as a class-A war criminal by the Tokyo Tribunal, but died of tuberculosis before the verdict was read, without his ever having actually appeared in court. Based on the brief biographies of Matsuoka that I have read, I’m not entirely sure on what grounds he was charged. It may have been related to his orchestration of the alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, although Japan was not yet engaged in war against any allied powers by the end of Matsuoka’s term of office. He also advocated war against the Soviet Union, but was ignored and in effect fired for that position. However reprehensible his attempts to promote Japanese-Soviet war may have been, it seems a little bit peculiar to prosecute someone for a policy which was never taken up by the government or military. It also seems possible that his efforts to avoid war between Japan and the US may have been a possible argument in his defense, which due to his premature death was never made. I would be very curious to know exactly what the charges against him were.

Update: I forgot to mention that Matsuoka is also one of the 14 class-A war criminal suspects controversially enshrined in Yasukuni. Apparently Emperor  Hirohito mentioned him by name as one of those who should not have been enshrined, and whose listing caused the Emperor to cease visiting the shrine.