XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com   
      
   Zoolook wrote:   
   > On 28/06/2010 01:08, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > Odd... why bother to distance yourself from the act if you think there   
   > is nothing inherently wrong with it?   
      
   	*MY* judgment of the position is irrelevant to whether the position is   
   reasonably defensible, which it is. People can hold reasonably   
   defensible positions without them being necessarily universally acceptable.   
      
   	The other reasonably defensible position is that you have a right to   
   control distribution of your own work regardless of being paid, and   
   those taking pirate distributions are violating that right and need to   
   be stopped.   
      
   	As a published author, I can see both of these positions as   
   reasonable.What I *DON'T* find reasonable are those who insist on either   
   position (or more extreme ones) as the *ONLY* position that makes sense.   
      
   >   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > But their copyright had been infringed... just because something is   
   > free, it does not follow that it is   
   > unregistered/non-copyright/available-without-licence.   
      
   	Yes, and that's an important point on the one side -- the   
   control-of-work side.   
      
   	But on the other side, if you have no intention of ever making use of   
   that aspect of your copyright, what does it matter? In effect that   
   market is invisible to you since you've already decided it doesn't matter.   
      
   	I think part of the problem here is that "copyright" contains the word   
   "right" and is often interpreted in the same sense as "right to life,   
   liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". In actuality, copyright was   
   always intended as a *concession* -- and a TEMPORARY concession -- of   
   some small power to the writer/artist to control their work *in order to   
   promote the creation of more works*. It was never in ANY sense intended   
   to prevent the public from being able to use that work themselves in any   
   way, shape, or form.   
      
   	As the actual public domain date of material has receded like a rainbow   
   before the public in recent decades, the idea of "public domain" has   
   become something associated with the dead past. There's no expectation   
   in modern readers or viewers that if they wait any amount of time that   
   the material will become available, even if they were to wait a lifetime.   
      
   >   
   >> 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."   
   >   
   > I am not commenting on any particular manga here, but sometimes the   
   > subject matter can be... questionable at best!  Incest, murder,   
   > drug-use... these are not uncommon subjects!  Perhaps the US government   
   > (under the belief that these "comics" and "cartoons" are aimed at the   
   > younger audience) have deemed the material illegal!   
   >   
      
   	(A) The U.S. Government has a founding principle of Free Speech which   
   pretty much forbids them to make anything illegal on such a basis. Local   
   governments MAY do so, but they risk being overruled on constitutional   
   grounds. There are VERY few exceptions to the Free Speech basis, and   
   many of the APPARENT exceptions aren't; they're ones in which you're   
   free to say whatever it is, but you must take the consequences for   
   having said it.   
      
   	(B) If banning such material were legal, there are literally thousands   
   if not tens of thousands of books, movies, etc. which should be banned.   
   In general, we don't do such things, and local banning attempts usually   
   end up collapsing under public pressure and mockery. I would not support   
   any legislation that permitted such restrictive measures.   
      
      
      
   --   
                         Sea Wasp   
                           /^\   
                           ;;;	   
         Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)