![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davemerrillI neglected my AN staff duties yesterday and we went to the comic book show downtown. Didn't really pick up a lot of comics. The pickin's were a little slimmer than last time in terms of the weirdo stuff. Prices were all over the map. It pays to shop around. Canada scored their first goal while we were there and the entire room erupted with cheers, and one guy asked "Who scored?" with a response of WHADYA MEAN, "WHO SCORED?" But he meant the player, not the team.
Canada played the game they should have played earlier, tight and tough. Good thing too, because it was 'with your shield or on it' time for those guys.
I believe it was Deb Aoki who made the first comparison of the whole Nick Simmons "Incarnate" plagarizing "Bleach" thing with anime fans who distribute scanlations and fansubs online, or who sell licenced-character fanart in artist alleys at anime cons. Chris Butcher agrees, while Simon Jones - link may be NSFW does not.
I tend to agree with Simon Jones, who has an interesting take on the doujinshi side of things. I don't think professional American comic artist plagiarism and fans selling fan art or fans distributing scanlations or fansubs is anywhere close to being the same thing, and it's kind of disingenuous to equate the two, or to claim that anime fans shouldn't complain about this because they spend all their time ripping off copyrights. It's apples and oranges. What Nick Simmons did was plagiarism - passing off somebody else's artwork as his own work - something every professional artist is aware of and should be on guard against.
Using the Nick Simmons Experience to condemn fan artists for creating derivative works... well, the "fans creating derivative works based on their favorite characters" horse has been out of that barn for decades and decades now. Nobody seems to have a problem with it, even when Kirk and Spock were inventing the term "slash".
What people DO have a problem with is profit, and that's what makes Nick Simmons stand out - he's doing his ripping off in a professional comic book that he gets paid for, that is sold as a professional magazine in the marketplace of professional magazines. Which understandably is held to a higher standard than the artists alley at Doofuscon '09 or Fantastic Trekiverse Vol 6 #3, circulation 50.
The Artist Alleys of anime conventions are all different and they all have their own set of rules, but they all address the issues of IP theft and fair use, the issues of plagiarism and of swiping and of selling your own work. It's not a wild west free for all. The video rooms at anime cons get clearance for the titles they show. The dealers room contracts are very clear about what dealers are allowed to sell, and bootlegs are not allowed. So, to characterize all anime fans as being ignorant or uncaring about IP is false.
Do some anime fans download illegal fansubs or scanlations? Sure. All the time. Do some Marvel/DC fans download scans of their favorite comics? Sure. All the time. Do professional American comic artists sit behind their tables and sell sketches of Wonder Woman or Spiderman or Spawn or Donald Duck? Sure, all the time. Do fans of American movies download illegal copies of their favorite movies? Sure, all the time. Does this have anything to do with Nick Simmons swiping Bleach? Not a bit.
Personally I think selling 25 or 50 or 500 prints of your fanart is crossing the line into sketchy ethical territory. Of course back in the 1980s I thought charging to copy tapes was ethically sketchy too. And the guys that filled tables at every comic book show selling VHS copies of laserdiscs they taped themselves, those are guys that anime fandom campaigned against at every opportunity, and when we started our own shows those people were not allowed to sell bootlegs. (not that they didn't try). Considering at the start anime fandom wouldn't exist without home taping, without tape trading, without the same kind of copyright infringement we now look down on, it's ironic. But what separates the fans from the pros, or the fans from the criminals, in the final analysis, it's all money. Nobody ever got rich selling fanzines of fan art or fan fiction, and while they may be on ethically shaky ground, at least they aren't swiping like a goddamn 12-year old and trying to pass it off as their own work in a professionally printed and distributed comic book.
Canada played the game they should have played earlier, tight and tough. Good thing too, because it was 'with your shield or on it' time for those guys.
I believe it was Deb Aoki who made the first comparison of the whole Nick Simmons "Incarnate" plagarizing "Bleach" thing with anime fans who distribute scanlations and fansubs online, or who sell licenced-character fanart in artist alleys at anime cons. Chris Butcher agrees, while Simon Jones - link may be NSFW does not.
I tend to agree with Simon Jones, who has an interesting take on the doujinshi side of things. I don't think professional American comic artist plagiarism and fans selling fan art or fans distributing scanlations or fansubs is anywhere close to being the same thing, and it's kind of disingenuous to equate the two, or to claim that anime fans shouldn't complain about this because they spend all their time ripping off copyrights. It's apples and oranges. What Nick Simmons did was plagiarism - passing off somebody else's artwork as his own work - something every professional artist is aware of and should be on guard against.
Using the Nick Simmons Experience to condemn fan artists for creating derivative works... well, the "fans creating derivative works based on their favorite characters" horse has been out of that barn for decades and decades now. Nobody seems to have a problem with it, even when Kirk and Spock were inventing the term "slash".
What people DO have a problem with is profit, and that's what makes Nick Simmons stand out - he's doing his ripping off in a professional comic book that he gets paid for, that is sold as a professional magazine in the marketplace of professional magazines. Which understandably is held to a higher standard than the artists alley at Doofuscon '09 or Fantastic Trekiverse Vol 6 #3, circulation 50.
The Artist Alleys of anime conventions are all different and they all have their own set of rules, but they all address the issues of IP theft and fair use, the issues of plagiarism and of swiping and of selling your own work. It's not a wild west free for all. The video rooms at anime cons get clearance for the titles they show. The dealers room contracts are very clear about what dealers are allowed to sell, and bootlegs are not allowed. So, to characterize all anime fans as being ignorant or uncaring about IP is false.
Do some anime fans download illegal fansubs or scanlations? Sure. All the time. Do some Marvel/DC fans download scans of their favorite comics? Sure. All the time. Do professional American comic artists sit behind their tables and sell sketches of Wonder Woman or Spiderman or Spawn or Donald Duck? Sure, all the time. Do fans of American movies download illegal copies of their favorite movies? Sure, all the time. Does this have anything to do with Nick Simmons swiping Bleach? Not a bit.
Personally I think selling 25 or 50 or 500 prints of your fanart is crossing the line into sketchy ethical territory. Of course back in the 1980s I thought charging to copy tapes was ethically sketchy too. And the guys that filled tables at every comic book show selling VHS copies of laserdiscs they taped themselves, those are guys that anime fandom campaigned against at every opportunity, and when we started our own shows those people were not allowed to sell bootlegs. (not that they didn't try). Considering at the start anime fandom wouldn't exist without home taping, without tape trading, without the same kind of copyright infringement we now look down on, it's ironic. But what separates the fans from the pros, or the fans from the criminals, in the final analysis, it's all money. Nobody ever got rich selling fanzines of fan art or fan fiction, and while they may be on ethically shaky ground, at least they aren't swiping like a goddamn 12-year old and trying to pass it off as their own work in a professionally printed and distributed comic book.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 06:40 pm (UTC)And I'm totally in agreement that people who steal copyrighted work online should not be complaining about some other guy stealing artwork for his comics.
But not everybody complaining about Nick Simmons is a scanlatin' jagoff. Me, for instance. I think I've looked at CANDY CANDY scans online, and.. um... hell, I have a Black Jack story that a friend translated 20 years ago that I was tempted to post online, before, you know, Viz and Vertical saved me the trouble.
The fascinating part of the scanlation issue is that it's something anime fandom has dealt with before, only in a different guise - there were industry organizations (J.A.I.L.E.D.) that attempted to fight bootlegs and unauthorized copying by, um, sending cease and desist letters to fan translators, there were fans who got sued for calling other fans "video pirates", there were endless debats about SM CDs and wall scrolls and you name it. And at the end of the day the fan organizations had to (a) set down guidelines and see that they were enforced, and (b) that was about it.
Because I am not Toei Animation Company's unpaid legal watchdog, and Interpol does not pay me to see that international copyrights are enforced. We're not cops. All we can do is see that the stuff that's sold at our shops or our conventions is as legit as we can determine, and the rest is up to the people who are actually being hurt by the pirates.
If scanlation sites are making money off of somebody's copyrighted material, then the copyright holders need to take action. Us shaking our fingers at the naughty people who download scanlations will not accomplish much.