Net culture – Page 6 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Copyright Term Extension in Japan: Balance shifting against extension?

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.

J-Cast on the new Ghibli movie: A chance to “re-educate” Goro

English-only Ghibli fans might be interested to know how people are reacting to the recently announced new Ghibli film “Ponyo of the Cliff top”. J-Cast has the story:

Hayao Miyazaki to Re-educate Son with New Film
Mar. 20

Director Hayao Miyazaki’s latest project, “Ponyo of the Cliff Top” was announced yesterday for a summer 2008 release. The main character, a 5-year-old boy named “Sosuke” was modeled after Miyazaki’s son Goro. Goro directed the Ghibli project “Tales of Earthsea” in 2006, and while the film was a major hit, many slammed how the film turned out. As a result, Hayao is attempting to re-educate his eldest son, and has included a message in the film of how he wants his eldest to turn out. Or at least that’s what everyone is saying.

The 5-year-old Lead Resembles Hayao’s Son

This will be the first film from Hayao Miyazaki ever since Howl’s Moving Castle achieved huge box office totals of 19.6 billion yen when it was released 4 years ago (November 2004). The new film is a story of Ponyo, a goldfish princess who wants to become human, and the five-year-old Sosuke. Producer Toshio Suzuki explains, “This is kind of like Miyazaki’s version of ‘The Little Mermaid.'” Tales of Earthsea, which came out last year, was supposed to have been directed by Hayao himself — he negotiated the film rights with the original author 20 years ago — but the director changed to his eldest son, Goro (pictured). As J-Cast reported earlier:

“Ghibli’s Suzuki said in an interview ‘(Hayao) said that “it would be inconceivable for Goro to take the helm.” In other words, he was totally against Goro directing it.'”

Afterward, Suzuki convinced Hayao to go along, but while the production ended up being a hit, the movie received less than favorable reviews from viewers and the original author.

The father-son feud was reported as follows in a March 20, 2007 article in Sports Nippon:

“Sosuke was modeled after Goro Miyazaki, Hayao’s 40-year-old eldest son. Goro made his directorial debut with Tales of Earthsea last year, and Hayao interpreted his son’s actions as a rebellion against his father, reportedly expressing remorse: “Things turned out this way because I was working all the time and didn’t spend time with Goro when he was 5 years old. [I’m making this] so there won’t be any more children like Goro.”

It looks like this will be a film about regrets over raising an eldest son.

“Thank goodness it’s Hayao!”

Since Hayao Miyazaki has made several statements indicating he’s retiring from directing, rumors had been circulating on the Internet wondering if there would be another Hayao-directed film. Perhaps influenced by such concerns, there are lots of blog entries from Yahoo, Livedoor, and Excite-hosted blogs placing their hopes in Hayao:

“Thank goodness it’s Hayao!!! But it looks like the kid is modeled after Goro…”
“Yes!!! YES!!!! I LOOOOOOOVEEEE Miyazaki’s movies!! Goro’s movie was just so poorly received I still haven’t watched it [Translator: Same here!], but I wonder how Earthsea turned out? Hayao’s movies almost never fail to please, so I am simply looking forward to it.”
“I am looking forward to this. Since this is coming after Goro Miyazaki seems to have misjudged the public, I am interested to see how people react to this one.”

Will this new film feature the father’s overwhelming dignity and serve to re-educate Goro?

Comment: This looks like a continuation of the human drama initiated and encouraged by Ghibli (who printed Goro’s blog that detailed the feud and an interview with Suzuki that explained more about it) since it was learned that Earthsea would be directed by the inexperienced Goro. Since, as J-Cast notes, Earthsea ended up being a hit despite bad reviews, perhaps the promoters and investors (which include notorious hit-generators Hakuhodo and Dentsu) see this reality-show spectacle as an effective way to generate hype. The personal stories probably resonate with fans of Studio Ghibli, which was voted Japan’s top-ranking brand name in a 2006 poll of consumers conducted by Nikkei BP:

Miyazaki magic

Studio Ghibli stepped up from second place in the 2005 survey, receiving fairly high marks in two of the four categories the survey conductors determined to be key factors in creating brand power. The two categories were friendly and outstanding.

The animation studio has spawned an array of popular films, such as “Howl’s Moving Castle”, released in 2004, successfully connecting with consumers on an emotional basis.

Resonating with consumers is the ultimate goal of corporate marketing.

A recent trend in Anime: Small production teams (think Homestarrunner or Adult Swim)

An interesting piece from FujiSankei Business-i (in translation):

Animation Produced in Small Teams is a Breath of Fresh Air for the Industry: FROGMAN Co., Others Showcase A Powerful Individuality
March 13, 2007

Animation produced in small teams have been hitting the market one after the other recently, which is a new development as works are usually produced in production teams of dozens or even hundreds of people. The new works, which maintain a high level of quality while showcasing the creators’ intense vision in every nook and cranny, a feat that can only be achieved in a small team, are blowing a new wind throughout Japan’s animation industry. (by Ryuichi Taniguchi)

Improved Performance of PCs Plays a Role

Makoto Shinkai, director of “Five Centimeters Per Second” (秒速５センチメートル) gave thanks before the 200 people who had gathered to watch his animated film shown at Cinema Rise in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward on March 3: “I am happy to show a film that I made the way I wanted it in a large space.” This was his first film since his long-form “Beyond the Clouds, at the Promised Location” (雲のむこう、約束の場所) was shown at the same theater in November 2006. He seemed to have felt a positive response from the excited crowd of waiting fans that filled the seats.

In the past, animation production was assumed to require a large staff, but Shinkai released his first 25-minute short “Voices of the Stars” (ほしのこえ) created almost entirely by himself on a PC. The imagery, which measures up to animation made by pros, and the story, about susceptible young men and women, made the piece a hit with the younger generation and gained its creator recognition as a member of the new generation of animation directors.

However, Shinkai did not choose the path of producing his work in a major studio with a large staff at his beck and call. He continued using PCs and producing his films with a small staff to complete his “Beyond” and the more recent “Five”.

Shinkai explains, “For a year and half, I had the animation staff come to my home, and created it at a steady pace using my desktop. He didn’t create the whole thing by himself as in “Voice of the Stars,” but he made drastic staff cuts compared to the number of people involved in “Beyond.” As a result, Shinkai was able to realize a film in which his vision crept into every nook and cranny, from depictions of the lyrical countryside, to the village landscapes, to the endless sky and ocean.

Productions that can make full use of the creator’s individuality because of such a small staff are made possible by high-performance PCs that can be used to draw, color, and even edit finely detailed images. It’s easy to see how individual creators like Shinkai can make it into the animation industry if they have talent and backup in terms of funding.

Product Placement Comes to Anime

The films produced by FROGMAN Co, led by a man who goes by the same name, were also born of superior talent, a PC, and the Internet. The company creates animation using Flash, an animation software that can play simple video on a PC, and began offering programs on the Internet starting in 2004. These short films gained an following, and in April 2006 FROGMAN’s “Falcon’s Claw, Secret Society” (秘密結社鷹の爪) debuted on TV Asahi.

On March 17, “Falcon’s Claw, Secret Society The Movie: The Fuhrer Dies Twice” (総統は二度死ぬ) opens in theaters. FROGMAN spoke at a sneak preview held in Roppongi on March 4: “I’m so happy because cinema is the apex of film.” Just as in the TV version, FROGMAN does almost all the voices himself and drew most of the animation. He was overjoyed to see his brainchild up on the big screen.

The big-screen version of course cost more, but the costs were covered by including product placement within the film. Since it’s a comedy, the film blatantly displays company logos and products to make the crowd laugh. They even included a “budget gauge” on the side of the screen that dips during the more elaborate CGI scenes as a gag for the audience.

Another Internet-based talent is Rareko. She published her work on the Internet and eventually worked into picture books and DVDs after they became popular. As more and more companies seek out dormant talent, it looks as though we’ll keep seeing unique, individual animation.

The Companies Backing up Individual Talent

Individuals’ talents can only blossom fully with the support of a corporation. Shinkai has received support from Comics Wave (headquartered in Shibuya) since he began work on “Voices”. CW is a company that manages publishing rights for content and scouting/development of creators. They contract with manga artists and illustrators and serve as a conduit for bargaining with companies that want to use the creators’ characters.

DLE (HQ: Chiyoda Ward), a company founded in 2001 as a company that provides consulting for the video content industry, serves as FROGMAN’s producer. In addition to producing television programs, the company also aids in Flash animation and helped bring FROGMAN into the limelight.

Fanworks (Shibuya) produces independent animation and supports Rareko, of “The Fragile Tank” (やわらか戦車) fame. When the Internet-based animation took off, they served as a conduit for commercialization demands and helped boost its popularity by forming the “Fragile Tank Coalition Force.”

—

To close out, here are some YouTube clips of some of the shows mentioned in this article:

Falcon’s Claw Secret Society:

Fragile Tank:

Five Centimeters Per Second:

Adamu slightly ahead of the curve and the new Internet environment in Japan

Shukan Playboy is finally getting around to investigating what I termed “living the dream” back in November. So am I correct in celebrating the fact that my summary of an Asahi article totally scooped a sleazy porn-filled tabloid’s low-priority human interest story? I don’t know, but on the scale of “nailing the Japanese mainstream media in English for a small audience” this rates about a 6, above prematurely praising the Asahi’s website (a 2) but well below exposing Bobby Valentine’s shady Japanese language lesson promotion schemes (easily my best work, a 10).

Also of note: Japan Times talks about malicious comment attacks on Japanese blogs. Are these frequent organized comment attacks on blogs a result of decades of social decay, as one expert alleges? Or could it simply be that there is a surge of new Internet users who learn their Internet manners from 2-channel? Couldn’t this problem be nipped in the bud if popular bloggers would only effectively manage their comments sections?

Blogs are really only starting to mature in Japan, so I can understand why the issue is newsworthy. What I don’t understand is why the most recent example is almost a year old.

I wonder why the article focused almost completely on victims’ stories and some expert opinions but neglected to mention what’s actually being done about the problem. A major recent development that came out 2 weeks ago was the announcement of new guidelines for ISPs that would make posters of malicious comments subject to having their personal identifying information disclosed to the victims of the comments (making it possible to sue for defamation). It’s a development that could put an end to the very practice the article is whining about, so it would have been nice of the author of a news article to let readers know what’s happening right now as opposed to last year. All we got instead was misleading bureaucrat-speak: “Currently, there is no regulation to curb enjo against Japan’s estimated 8.68 million blogs, said Yuko Fujii, an official in the information policy division at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.”

Also also of note: There’s a long interview with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on the occasion of his fact-finding mission in Japan. He must have a lot to learn because these are the only substantive comments he makes about the Japanese-language version of his site:

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it is said that in the Japanese Wikipedia, people would go to the discussion page, then discuss and discuss and discuss until they reach a consensus — and finally someone will go and very cautiously change the entry. Whereas in English, we change the entry and fight about it. I’ve heard this not just from English speakers but Japanese themselves. I wonder if it might not be some kind of self-humorous image of Japanese that endless discussions for consensus occur before something happens. It could be true, though I don’t know. But I’m told that the culture is different. Maybe I’ll be able to find out when I hang out with the Wikipedians here.
…
Why do you think the rate of growth has slowed on the Japanese Wikipedia compared to other languages?
I don’t really know. That’s what I’m here to find out. Maybe it needs more promotion. But it’s very difficult to say. Some of it is the Japanese Wikipedia used to be larger than the French, and there were twice as many editors working in the French Wikipedia. So we used to joke that “there’s more French but the Japanese work harder.” (Laughs)

The part about consensus-based editing is sort of true, at least from what I’ve seen. People will complain about content without making changes immediately, but that’s not universal and I don’t think there necessarily needs to be consensus, just perhaps no big objections.

Anyway, I hope that he learns a lot during the month he’s spending in Japan, including another eye-opening phenomenon that Wikipedia Japan has created: the posting of otherwise taboo information that is little-reported in the major media (such as the fact that the famous “Kano Sisters” are not actually related, or the bogusness of the Densha Otoko phenomenon, as discussed here).

Look at me, I’m complaining about journalists who write about themselves!

As someone who reads far too many news articles for his own good, I may be somewhat more sensitive to media cliches than your average news consumer. For instance, I have a whole category on this blog for “kabuki” metaphors.

But today I want to talk about another of my pet peeves in the English-language news world: when the reporter flips things all around and makes him/herself the focus of a story. While some people might be interested in the daily life of some freelance writer who rides his bike around town, probably most of us don’t want to read about what substantively is no different from following a homeless man around all day and writing about it (though wait, that would be a good idea). And speaking of homeless people, I almost broke my mp3 player in outrage when I heard this pointless “report” about a man who decided to write out of a storage unit in New York. He should have tried that in DC – he’d have ended up getting arrested if he was lucky, but more likely had his ass handed to him like the rest of the crackheads who try that stunt.

Or consider the reporter who freaked out when he was deemed unworthy of a Wikipedia entry for lack of notability. He spent a full two pages on the subject, and once published the article apparently made him immediately eligible for an article again. This naked display of the writer’s fragile yet gargantuan ego leaves me almost speechless but I will say this: You use Slate to whine to the world that you’re underappreicated, and then that whining (intentionally or not) simultaneously pressures the source of the perceived slight to recognize you once again? You should be ashamed of yourself! (I am not mentioning the writer by name or linking to the article in the hope that he won’t ever find this and have a mental orgasm over seeing his name in print because of something I wrote. I wouldn’t be able to touch the keyboard again).

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Journalists can be pretty egotistical, and as writers they no doubt have a burning desire to tell their story. Or perhaps sometimes they’re just dicks (“I got Bill Clinton to threaten me!”). Foreign correspondents especially seem eager to put themselves in the reporting, which is usually justified (“My convoy got hit with an IED!” “I got kidnapped!”) but too often an unappealing by-product of the expat experience (“Look at me, I am getting paid to walk around China!”). And often it’s less about autobiography than it is a cheap stunt (“Look at me, I got waterboarded!”). Whatever the case, it just doesn’t sit right with me when there are real things to report about. Much like nonbinding resolutions directed at foreign governments, these articles seem to be lost on their way to somewhere else.

Since I haven’t been around for very long, I am going to assume that this practice has been around for a while — HL Mencken seemed to like writing about himself for one thing, and you can see traces of Hunter Thompson in a lot of these kinds of projects. But at the same time this practice seems like some unholy amalgamation of gonzo reporting and the Today Show with Katie Couric meets livejournal, which would make its growth more recent.

There are better ways for a reporter to talk about him/herself as part of the story than to simply say what is happening and then try to link that to some cosmic truth or the zeitgeist or whatever justification you use to get printed in a news publication. The best use of personal narrative that I’ve seen in recent reporting is Nicholas Kristof, who has used the sheer power of his reporting to play a pivotal role in keeping alight what little focus the US has placed on resolving the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, not to mention his efforts to force people to take a hard look at the state of child prostitution in Cambodia from a much more dynamic perspective than almost any other source would have the guts to give. That might be setting the bar high, but I think it has to be pretty high or else we’ll never hear the end of Budding Journalist’s Amazing Tales of Public Transportation.

Sankei’s Iza! is great, Asahi’s Japanese website is improving

UPDATE: I am forced to take back my praise of Asahi.com since it has come to light that a) The photo section isn’t new or any better than other similar services; and b) They are ending the great “Today’s Morning Edition” feature.

Last June, the Sankei Shimbun corporation launched a new site called Iza! (meaning “when it counts”), a “participatory news site” that has proven groundbreaking for the online Japanese-language media. The site unites some content that was previously on disparate websites for Sankei group publications (including the flagship Sankei Shimbun, trashy daily Yukan Fuji/ZAKZAK, and sports daily Sankei Sports), features blogs run by their own reporters (such as Washington-based Yoshihisa Komori and the reporters assigned to intellectual property issues), allows the creation of user-generated blogs, displays trackbacks for all its stories, RSS feeds for everything, and — perhaps most importantly — includes a whole bunch of content that once could only be found online.

I am pleasantly surprised at the site’s quality, but at first I was skeptical that Japan’s most conservative national daily could “get it” when it comes to online news. But they do get it, and they are leaving other sites in the dust. Sankei has a motivation to revamp its business: the main Sankei Shimbun is only the 6th-place newspaper in Japan, the last among the nationally-circulated papers and behind even the regional Nagoya-based Chunichi Shimbun. One sign of success: Sankei is using the site to launch blog-inspired books, such as this one by a political reporter.

Though most of the major newspaper sites give out their editorials and some columns for free, many (Nikkei is probably the worst offender) still feature pitiful two-line summaries of their feature news articles (or brief reprints from wire services) and offer nothing that could be termed full news coverage. An August 2006 Bivings Report study of Japan’s online media market concluded that in general “Japanese papers are not taking aggressive Web strategies (except when it comes to cell phones).” Focusing on cell phone content may be in line with many readers’ demands, but there is a growing market for online journalism that I believe will match the US’ development of online media as a main source of news, even if many of the users will in fact be reading from cell phones.

There are many factors that contribute to a general reluctance among the national newspapers to modernize (government-sanctioned protection against price competition chief among them), but they are under increasing pressure to get their act together. The share of ad spending that goes to newspapers has declined from 21% to 17% over the last 10 years. Online ad revenues have doubled in the past 2 years and are making up a growing share of the total ad market. Perhaps more importantly, Dentsu, which is the primary ad agency for an astonishing 92% of Japan’s dailies, is starting to focus more of its attention on this exploding area of the market. And unlike print newspapers, there are no government-provided barriers to entry in place, which lets companies that aren’t even in the newspaper business try and challenge newspapers’ dominance of print media and compete for ad money. Livedoor already has excellent news and citizen journalism sites, for example. Also, Yahoo and JANJAN have politics websites that blow away anything the newspapers have had to offer in the past.

One newspaper site that seems to be getting the hint is Asahi Shimbun. Ever since a string of reporting scandals left the newspaper weakened in terms of credibility and access to politicians, the Asahi launched a campaign to reform itself called “Journalist Declaration.” The paper pledged to return to the principles of its mission statement to “Persevere in freedom of expression from a position of neutrality” and “fight corruption without any illegality or violence.” Specifically, the Asahi decided to take on major organizational reforms to “create a flexible reporting organization that allows for fully developed investigative reporting and meets the needs of the times.”

Asahi decided to stop running TV ads for the campaign after it was found that an evening edition article on winter rice cakes had been plagiarized from an online Yomiuri article. One of the ads is thankfully still on YouTube, however.

Nevertheless, the cleaning house has done the Asahi some good. There really have been some great stories broken by the Asahi in the past year and a half or so, some of which I’ve mentioned here. But the biggest personal benefit for me is that the Asahi’s Japanese-language website has improved quite a bit:

An idea of what’s in the day’s morning edition – Click on the Editorial link on the front page and above the editorials there is a list of the various sections of the paper (Front page/International/Society etc). One article per section is available in (I assume) full length, along with just the headlines for other articles. Even apart from this section, however, it seems like most of the big news items get a much more detailed treatment than other major news sites, even though they might not be full-length.
Better RSS – You can now preview the first line of the article along with the headline where previously all you got was the headline (they put in ads, but it’s not a bad trade-off). You can get the Asahi’s Japanese-language RSS feed here. It’s still hidden from the front page for some reason. I’d of course like to see them offer some more variety in the RSS rather than a single feed of latest headlines.
Bigger pictures – One of my biggest pet peeves about Japanese news sites is the use of tiny, often indecipherable photos to go along with their stories. I don’t know why they did that, but I am guessing it was some compromise reached over copyright concerns. Whatever the case, Asahi’s new photo gallery section now lets you get a big eyeful of newsmakers like Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui:

None of the Asahi’s new features allow for any “Web 2.0” style interconnectivity a la Iza, but in terms of pure news transmission this is a big step in the right direction. Other sites are of course not standing still (Yomiuri has a forum!), but so far I am most impressed by these two efforts.

Foreign Crime File – is all the fuss really necessary?

Today I want to talk about the “Foreign Crime Files” manga. It’s an offensive, disgusting book that tries (albeit poorly) to exploit Japanese people’s fears and prejudices. By now many of my readers will have heard about this since the Japan bloggers have duly reported it with furious anger. But my preliminary and very unscientific research seems to indicate that this book has not made much of a splash in Japan as of yet. It’s enough to make me worry that this outrage might actually be building more of a market for the book (and a platform for its fear-mongering) than it would have had otherwise.

The sole Amazon review (1 star): “Uses lots of discriminatory phrases, low level content. It seems as if the author has a major inferiority complex as a Japanese person. This will engender a bias against foreigners among ignorant Japanese people.” Also from Amazon: People who bought this book also bought “Completely Master the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1!” (a test of Japanese as a second language). Amazon rank: 1004 in books.

Japanese-language Technorati results: zero!

2ch presence: One very short thread on the “Books” board. Overview:

Thread starter: Did you know about GAIJIN HANZAI FILE, this horrible, discriminatory book?!
2channeler 1: It’s an ad!
TS: No, it’s not an ad, I just want to know why Japanese people allow this kind of thing?
2channeler 1: Well, I guess it’s more that we don’t really care about foreigners.
2channeler 2: My opinion is that people who overreact to this discrimination are pretty depressing. Just leave it alone. The fact that the foreign media has picked this up is just what I’m talking about. They understand that life and racial discrimination can’t be separated. A worldview that relates and compares issues to one’s own life is very Christian.

No mention in a news thread on the lower “foreign crime rate” reported by the National Police Agency.

Google results: The multitude of booksellers’ websites selling the book and foreign Japan bloggers’ reactions, plus one blogger/J-pop singer cocco (wiki), who explained: “It isn’t being talked about much by Japanese people yet, but one book (Foreigner Crime File) is enraging foreigners who live in Japan… I worry that this might turn into an international problem!”
According to cocco, there is a movement going on within mixi to boycott Family Mart over this book, one that debito has helped organize outside of mixi and that has in the end kept it off the shelves there as well as in other places.

It could be early to conclude that Japanese people just aren’t all that interested in this book, or perhaps they’ll just never have the chance to read it due to the success of Debito and others to get this book censored. But in this era of viral marketing and unscrupulous people, you have to wonder if all the coverage we foreign Japan bloggers are giving this awful book are giving it more attention than it ever really deserved. I feel like this book would have died a death in the sleazy porno section of the convenience stores if it weren’t for its almost made-for-the-Internet inflammatory illustrations.

How do free manga make money in a declining manga market?

Since my last translation of something about the anime industry was something of a hit, I thought I’d do a little pandering and take a look at an emerging free manga in Japan as reported by Weekly Oriental Economy:

Free manga magazines: How exactly do they make money?

(2007/01/31)
People are abuzz about the free weekly manga (comic book) that is being handed out around Tokyo. The person behind it all let us know his business model (printed in Weekly Oriental Economy’s Feb. 3, 2007 edition)

The first free manga magazine in Japan, Comic Gumbo, has been released in Tokyo. Just recently, a “free paper” market has sprung up upon the success of Recruit Co.’s “R25” and “Hot Pepper” (see some of the contents of R25 at neomarxisme). In response, this manga magazine has pounded its way in.

The printer is Digima, a venture publishing firm. Company president Akihiko Kai (age 36) founded the company in Sept. 2005 after serving as an operating officer at Dentsu (Japan’s top ad agency) and Trans Cosmos (marketing/offshoring). Gumbo’s target audience is salarymen aged 20-40, and every Tuesday and Wednesday 100,000 copies are handed out at areas including major stations on JR’s Yamanote Line.

The size of Japan’s comic book market is approx. 500 billion yen (about US$4.1 billion, in annual sales I’m assuming). However, readers, who are mostly young people, have been stolen away by mobile phones and the Internet, setting the market on a downward trend. Kai explains: “To get into the market as a latecomer we needed to be bold by making our product free.”

What’s surprising is the fullness of content in the pages that wouldn’t make you think it’s free. The inaugural issue for Jan. 16-17 contained 12 series and was 230 pages long. There is also an impressive lineup of writers, including Tatsuya Egawa, author of Tokyo University Story (he’s doing a manga version of Botchan [English translation of the original novel at No-Sword]). The manuscript payments made to regular contributors are reportedly in line with other manga magazines.

Aggressive use of the Internet

So, can this be profitable? The company has not released its revenue plans, but there are only 26 pages of ads, constituting 10% of the entire book. This is far fewer than R25, which is 40% ads, indicating that they are not relying on ad revenue.

Actually, Digima allows readers to access past series on the Internet for a monthly fee of 500 yen. If membership grows healthily, then this by itself will serve as a major revenue source. In addition, the company intends to issue a trade paperback in the first half of this year. These two are what Kai envisions as the main revenue streams for his company.

The reason that Gumbo has included 12 series is simple. The more series there are, the more likely it is that one will become a hit. If a hit emerges, the trade paperback edition will become a long seller, allowing for healthy returns.

Free distribution is simply a method to lower the hurdles for entry into the market. The subsequent non-free businesses will be the main focus, making this fundamentally different from the free newspapers. The inaugural issue immediately “sold out” its 100,000 copies, succeeding in finding their way into readers’ hands. Will it be able to earn loyal fans? Gumbo’s true battle will be from here on out.

(Writer: Akihiko Fujio; Photo: Koichi Imai)

Comment: I don’t know about paying 500 yen/month just to read manga unless there were a series I was really into (or if I were into scanlations), but hey it sounds like a good enough model if the quality actually is high enough to result in hit paperbacks and TV/movie licenses.

2ch “puppetmaster” company also under threat of forced bankruptcy

From ZAKZAK: The same man who is behind legal proceedings to provisionally seize the assets of 2ch founder Hiroyuki as well as force him into bankruptcy for failure to cooperate with a court decision is now apparently filing to force a mysterious “company X” into third party bankruptcy as well over the matter. This Company X, based in Sapporo, is reportedly the true operator of 2ch and the one actually in charge of deleting inappropriate posts etc.

The move comes after the man endured a wave of further harassment from 2ch users after earlier news reports that the suit might cause the 2ch.net domain to fall out of Hiroyuki’s ownership. Since the Sapporo company hasn’t been able to keep 2ch’s rage in check despite unprecedented moves to filter keywords and ban links to the ZAKZAK site, the plaintiff felt he had to go after this company. It’s unclear whether the judgment will go his way since it is reportedly somehow difficult to establish a connection between the two entities.

I’m keeping this short since if a majority of the Japanese public doesn’t give a crap what happens to 2ch then maybe I shouldn’t either.

The Joe reading list

I’ve been using Google Reader for the past few months to monitor some of my favorite blogs and news sites. I follow 10 to 15 sites at any one time. More than that, and I don’t have enough time to read it all: less than that, and I feel uninformed.

My list changes regularly, since the quality of feeds (and my interest in them) varies over time. Here’s what I’m currently watching. Continue reading The Joe reading list