XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com   
      
   Blade wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   > "B Sellers"  wrote in message   
   > news:i080h2$n2s$1@news.eternal-september.org...   
   >> As I have pointed out in the past in some cases the publishers   
   >> and in others the mangaka have failed to make their licensed work   
   >> available to the gaijin of the world.  The library doesn't have seminal   
   >   
   > In most cases that is because there is not a perceived profitable market   
   > for it.   
      
      
   	Then it's  a perfectly reasonable position to take (though I don't take   
   it myself) that if the owner sees no profitable market, then there can   
   be no stealing because the owner believes there is no money to be made,   
   has no intention of selling the material there, and making copies   
   therefore COSTS THE OWNER NOTHING AT ALL.   
      
   	Unlike with cars, physical CDs, or other physical products, electronic   
   copies being taken by unlicensed personnel does not in any way prevent   
   the sale of legit copies. I.e., if I steal a hundred cars from my local   
   dealership, the local dealership has just lost the inventory that they   
   could have sold to legit customers. If I make a thousand copies of Manga   
   Whatever electronically, the original is completely untouched and   
   unchanged. So if Manga Whatever is sold in Japan, but the Japanese   
   rightsholders say "nah, there's no market in America, we're not even   
   going to sell it there", then twenty million copies made and distributed   
   in America doesn't -- and CANNOT -- have any impact on their bottom   
   line. They'd already decided there was no market, they weren't going to   
   sell it here, so under NO circumstances would any of those copies have   
   generated money for them.   
      
   	If the position of the rights owner is that the market is not worth the   
   effort, then it is odd indeed for them to trouble themselves over that   
   market supplying itself; if it's not worth the effort for them to   
   exploit -- that effort being NO MORE FOR THEM THAN IT IS FOR THE   
   PIRATES, really -- then suing over it would certainly seem to be saying,   
   roughly, "you aren't worth my time to market to, but despite the fact   
   that you're worthless, I'll still sue your ass."   
      
   	In the Old Days of U.S. copyright, this was a defensible position for   
   the rightsholder to take because in the old interpretation of copyright   
   YOU HAD TO DEFEND IT.   
      
   	This is not true with the current interpretation of copyright (although   
   it still holds for Trademarks. This wouldn't be a big deal if it were   
   not for the fact that trademark law is being abused badly by the   
   corporations).   
      
      
   	I'd also be slightly less sympathetic to the whole concept if it   
   weren't for the fact that copyright has been ludicrously extended in the   
   past several decades. Used to be that it was a MAXIMUM of 28 years (14   
   plus a 14 year renewal). Now it's potentially well over 100 (life plus 95).   
      
      
   --   
                         Sea Wasp   
                           /^\   
                           ;;;	   
         Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)