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some artists make a living off producing dojinshi.

In the west, fans of anime, the term for Japanese animation, behave much like fans of Star Wars and Star Trek: they “remix” the characters and ideas from the stories they watch.

Trekkies or Star Wars fans do the same activities as otaku, but one practice sets anime fans apart from other avid fans: fansubs.

Manga also has its own form of fansubs called scanlations

Fansubs and scanlations don’t quite match the “traditional” forms of remix that Lessig and others mention. They do not create a “new” work in the same sense as dojinshi, fan films, or AMVs because their aim is to remain faithful to the original work.

Fansubs as a cultural product sit at an interesting boundary—between the dojinshi-like fan culture that authors such as Lessig want to encourage and the massive online file trading so vilified by the recording and motion picture industries.

examines the anime industry’s unique relationship with fansubbers in the context of the suggestion that it represents a new policy model for online copyright.

Section 7 concludes by stating that it is too soon to claim the anime industry as a victory for alternative business models incorporating what most would think of as widespread copyright infringement.

Otaku create fansubs because they love anime—in fact, most love all things Japanese.

Fansubs predate BitTorrent, broadband, the dotcom boom and bust, and even the World Wide Web.

Fansubbers distributed or traded the finished videocassette tapes to others, but because of the time and cost involved of mailing out a physical medium, distribution was limited.

At one time fansubs were virtually the only way that fans could watch (and understand) anime.

But as with the music industry, the benefits of digital technology and the internet brought problems.46 Fansubbers started to take advantage of faster computers that allowed them to subtitle anime without the need for expensive, specialized equipment.47 This made it easier for more people to fansub because of the lower cost barriers to becoming a fansubber. The internet also meant that fans could meet from around the world, thus making it more likely that fansub groups would form. Today, groups now make digital video files instead of videocassettes.

Fansubbed videocassettes offered a poor quality picture and sound that encouraged fans to buy the licensed product when it came out and also limited the number of copies that could be made from a single original cassette (or from 2nd and 3rd generation cassettes).49 Digisubs offer a quality comparable to official (DVD) releases and the ability to make limitless copies.

Fansubbers then “release” their fansubs to fans. Distribution happens through all of the regular internet channels, including p2p services (Kazaa, eMule, etc), BitTorrent, IRC, and newsgroups.

Lessig essentially asks the question, “Do our laws stifle creativity and sharing to the point where it harms society?”78 Some point to fansubs and anime as part of the answer to this question—when a company allows some illegal activity it actually benefits.

Unfortunately for fansubbers, copyright law does not condone their activities.80 International copyright treaties such as the Berne Convention, state that its signatories (such as the United States and Japan) should grant authors the exclusive right to translation.

copyright law construes translations as “derivative works”.82 Derivative works are any work “based upon one or more preexisting works.

The Japanese legal system may also, as a practical matter, discourage litigation towards fansub groups within Japan,

Within Japan, fansubs could potentially be within the law because the Japanese take a more relaxed attitude towards some aspects of copyright law and include private use and non-profit exceptions into their law.

For infringements outside of Japan, it is no small wonder that Japanese companies do not bother with the expense of enforcing a right against a group whose infringement affects a distant market with a different legal system.

In his article regarding selective copyright enforcement and fansubs, Kirkpatrick argues for a fair use defense under U.S. law for fansub activities based on the cross-cultural value of translations, the non-commercial nature of fansub groups, and the potential market enhancement for the original work.

The fact remains that fansubs may create a preferable product for otaku—thus decreasing any market enhancement arguments.

One wonders what could be easier than a few clicks of the mouse and a few hours (or less) wait for a file to download, for free. Many video files deliver comparable picture quality and fandubs do exist.

Regardless of any potential defense, the law sufficiently tilts towards copyright holders so that they can easily use the threat of suit as enforcement.

The sheer cost of defending a copyright suit makes for a powerful incentive for fansubbers to settle, especially since fansubbers make no money from their activities and are unlikely to have any assets.

Fans and critics complain that manga — which emerged in the years after World War II as an edgy, uniquely Japanese art form — has become as homogenized and risk-averse as the limpest Hollywood blockbuster.

The place is pulsing with possibility, full of inspired creators, ravenous fans, and wads of yen changing hands. It represents a dynamic force

future business model of music, movies, and media of every kind.

Nearly every aspect of cultural production — which is now Japan's most influential export — is rooted in manga.

Comics occupy the center, feeding the rest of the media system.

About 90 percent of the material for sale — how to put this — borrows liberally from existing works.

Japanese copyright law is just as restrictive as its American cousin, if not more so.

known as "circles" even if they have only one member

by day's end, some 300,000 books sold in cash transactions totaling more than $1 million

"This is something that satisfies the fans," Ichikawa said. "The publishers understand that this does not diminish the sales of the original product but may increase them.

As recently as a decade ago, he told me, creators of popular commercial works sometimes cracked down on their dojinshi counterparts at Super Comic City. "But these days," he said, "you don't really hear about that many publishers stopping them."

"unspoken, implicit agreement."

"The dojinshi are creating a market base, and that market base is naturally drawn to the original work," he said. Then, gesturing to the convention floor, he added, "This is where we're finding the next generation of authors.

They tacitly agree not to go too far — to produce work only in limited editions and to avoid selling so many copies that they risk cannibalizing the market for original works.

It's also a business model

He opened Mandarake 27 years ago, well before the dojinshi markets began growing more popular — in part to provide another sales channel for the work coming out of them. At first, publishers were none too pleased with his new venture. "You think I didn't hear from them?" he tells me in a company conference room. But in the past five years, he says, as the scale and reach of the markets has expanded, the publishers' attitude "has changed 180 degrees." It's all a matter of business, he says.

triangle. "You have the authors up there at this tiny little tip at the top. And at the bottom," he says, drawing a line just above the widening base of the triangle, "you have the readers. The dojin artists are the ones connecting them in the middle."

The dojinshi devotees are manga's fiercest fans.

provides publishers with extremely cheap market research

the manga industrial complex is ignoring a law designed to protect its own commercial interests.

Intellectual property laws were crafted for a read-only culture.

the copyright winds in the US have been blowing in the opposite direction — toward longer and stricter protections. It is hard to imagine Hollywood, Nashville, and New York agreeing to scale back legal protection in order to release the creative impulses of super-empowered fans, when the gains from doing so are for now only theoretical.

mutually assured destruction. What that accommodation lacks in legal clarity, it makes up for in commercial pragmatism.

Dramatic moments tend to distort time, either by slowing it down (usually long enough to call out the name of an attacker or the name of the "special move" used in the attack, or for bystanders to comment on the situation), or by looping three times. Similarly, transformations (especially those animated with stock footage) also seem to stop time until completed, allowing them to be used to counter attacks, or not allowing the person to be attacked while performing them. Death is not instantaneous to significant characters. Permanent death is also a rare occurrence. Humans are capable of instantaneously freezing into solid ice or transforming into stone when surprised and/or embarrassed. In lesser cases, a person's forehead will instantly turn blue. When a character is in an extremely pensive mood, the entire area around him/her will disappear into a featureless black void, while he/she remains illuminated by a misty light coming from an unknown but vertically located source. Intense emotion can be manifest in audible artifacts as well as physical/visual ones. For example, intense grief or concern imparts a slow repeat echo to the human voice in dramatic situations, even when appropriately placed reflective surfaces are not present. However, the amount of echo thus imparted is inversely proportional to the number of words, with anguished cries of another person's name usually receiving the most echo.

In a series where characters change size, the opponents must be of the same size to battle. The hero(es) cannot use their mech or their larger form to squish the monster, nor can the monster grow and squish the hero(es). This is also found in Tokusatsu series, especially Super Sentai, but not in Kaiju films, where monsters such as Godzilla often stomp humans at will. Sorrowful crying with much feeling can force tears to gush out like waterfalls. Usually used only during humorous situations, while in dramatic situations, the tear flow is more realistic. Angry scolding to another character causes the scolder to enlarge and grow sharp fangs while the person being scolded will shrink. Attacks strong enough to shred entire planets will not destroy anyone's clothes or hair. Conversely, certain explosions can destroy a female character's clothing without significantly harming her body—in some cases, without her initially noticing this. Any fire-based attack on a character will not completely burn his/her clothes but will leave black stains instead.

A single cut can be made swiftly, cleanly. This is possible with any object, particularly with hands, paper, swords, and even air. A sword, especially a katana, can cleanly cut through anything, even including large objects (such as ships) and hair, but not through other swords. There is a slight loophole in this law - if an expert fighter (even if using hand-to-hand techniques) wishes to end a duel with an obviously lesser opponent in an appropriately dramatic way, he can execute an appropriately dramatic attack that destroys his opponent's weapon-often without their knowledge; after completing a seemingly successful attack, they will notice the expert is unharmed and look at their weapon quizzically, at which point it will either fall into two cleanly cut pieces (in a dramatic battle) or shatter like glass (in a comedic battle). Wooden katanas (bokken) can cut just as well as the real thing (and are almost never destroyed by the aforementioned loophole), if not better. Faster than light travel is possible with many characters, particularly those engaged in martial art battles; and so a vehicle is not required. Trains and other unlikely forms of transportation can fly, through either technology or magic. And the bigger it is, the faster it moves. Any female can, if angered by someone, pull out a wooden rice mallet, of any proportions, from hammerspace and hit the offender with it to let go of some aggressions. It should be noted that, no matter how large the mallet is, or how flat the offender gets after the pounding, he/she will always revert to original shape without having to experience any lasting health deterioration from the whole ordeal. A good example of this is in the anime Pokémon: when Misty explained her hatred of bugs, she whacked Caterpie with a rice mallet.

Death can be suspended until it is appropriate, suspenseful, or ironic. During the end part of some battles, characters may opt to charge at one another with their sword, meaning to chop the other in half. At the point of contact, all that will be seen is a bright white slash going across the screen, but it will remain unclear who is hurt. The two characters will then stay, kneeling on the floor, facing away from each other, until the evil character falls into pieces, having been killed minutes earlier. For added dramatic effect, the good character will clutch the area that they were hit or cough up blood, after the two have performed their attacks and are facing away from each other, making it appear as though they lost. A few moments later, the evil character will fall to the ground, defeated. Also note, death is never, under ANY circumstance, certain, a character can be impaled, literally from navel to nose and come back later, unscathed. Every human body contains 16 gallons of blood under high pressure-a familiar term used is 'to make it rain blood'. This will not occur if whatever inflicts the wound is left in it, which allows the attacker to withdraw it, turn, wipe it clean and put it away-blood may begin spraying from the wound like a firehose after any one of these actions. Alternatively, the mortally wounded character may pull it out himself and use it to execute a final attack. Non-impaling wounds, such as being crushed or falling from a great height, usually do not cause these geysers of blood, but nosebleeds will often fountain impressively immediately upon a character's recognition of appropriate portions of an attractive female body. This is apparently true conversely, as sexual innuendo in the form of a guitar causes significant nosebleeds in the female cast of FLCL. Loud noises, such as screams of anguish and explosions, can be heard from space. All sounds can be transmitted in space, e.g. transmitted differently then with air-compression waves. Band-aids heal anything and everything, especially when applied with care. Any pain inflicted in a humorous fashion will almost never cause any lasting damage.

Whenever a female character falls down while running in any non-humorous scene, she will almost certainly sprain her ankle in such a way that movement becomes impossible. Furthermore, if the character is the leading female character, she will be found or be in the company of the male lead and he will carry her on his back, sparking a deeper romantic interest. Should two characters of the opposite sex fall within proximity of each other, the male's face will end up planted in the female's crotch or chest. Skirts will helpfully flip up to provide maximum humiliation to both parties, and shirts will open to reveal maximum cleavage. Towels will fly off both parties for this same reason. In the rare occasion that the female is wearing pants, the male will instead be on top of the female while groping the female's breast(s). In a similar sexual vein, a pre-adolescent girl will blossom out with full breasts and hips, sometimes growing instantly out of her clothing (common in erotic manga.) Characters, mostly men, can run perfectly and quickly, with their arms trailing behind them or sticking straight out from their sides. This is often done in a comical fashion, and possibly fleeing from an angered female character.

The hero always wins with two exceptions a. the other guy cheated b. the other guy is a master at fighting or something b1. Amendment: no matter how strong the other guy is, the hero will be able to beat him or her with an intense compacted training session, usually in the span of one day(unless handwaving time compression technology is available, enabling the hero to accomplish weeks or months of training in that same period of time). b2. Amendment: the other guy can win, but the hero will then proceed to train while dead in a variety of ultimate techniques, and will then return from the dead. All but the last technique trained in will cause damage, but will not defeat the other guy. The hero will then use the final technique. This technique often is said to result in death for the user, but almost always fails to do so. b3. Amendment: the other guy will eventually like the hero and instantly switch sides, often including a tear jerking, episode long flashback that involves crying, childhood memories, and random other events involving the other guy, often in the middle of a battle with time standing still (Often in tandem with first example). In most manga series the main characters (most times a boy) will always be secretly coveted by a girl, which later blooms into a relationship. In some occasions, some characters' injuries heal much quicker. (i.e. One Piece) No matter the relative strengths or abilities, a male character always takes a maximum amount of damage when punched by an angry female character in a comedic manner (often with the male being knocked bodily to the ground or across a room)