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that’s not to say that doujinshi isn’t profitable…a few artists never “go pro” because they make quite a healthy living on their doujinshi,

The much better road for the American manga industry and fans to take is not to import doujinshi, but to import the doujinshi ideal and ethics, and foster a domestic doujinshi community of our own.  This road is beset by its own share of hurdles, though, and they have very deep roots.

in America properties are created and owned by the corporation.

While fanzines and fanfiction have been around in the U.S., we have nothing even close to the doujinshi scene in Japan, because of American corporate mentality which values “perpetual properties” instead of new creations, and these properties are guarded visciously.

They simply have no reason to support budding artists in such a way, when their raison detre are still characters created decades ago.  Fan comics are not seen as extending the life of a property, but as competition. 

The truth is a significant portion of Japanese doujinshi are erotic works, many based on children’s shows.  It isn’t hard to imagine the kind of moral outrage most doujinshi would illicit. 

American manga companies need to take a hard look at doujinshi in Japan and understand its benefits, and readers and artists should take a stand because this is an opportunity for the status of the creator to take precedence over the corporation.

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.

establishment of an official industry presence in the form of an industry booth dealers’ section

alternate media such as software, music, and character goods.

doujin circle (同人サークル). A doujin circle is an individual or group of creators who collaborate as a discreet entity to produce doujin items for sale;

Recently the so-called “kojin circle” (個人サークル, personal circle) composed of a single member has been increasing, as individuals take on all aspects of doujin production from the application process, illustration, post-production, printing, and staffing of the table space allotted at the event.

Step 1 Purchase an application packet.

Step 2 File the application correctly and on time.

Comiket is an all genre event, meaning literally anything goes

Step 3 Wait for the election results.

Step 4 Produce a doujin.

Also, copyright considerations that apply to other events such as Wonder Festival are in effect here when it comes to certain types of character goods (no unauthorized figures), and while most IP is considered fair game for parody in the doujin community, a few exceptions such as Disney stand out as taboo.

Step 5 Coordinate replication.

Step 6 Make final preparations.

This broadening of distribution means that it’s no longer necessary to attend events in person to obtain many professionally produced books at a reasonable price. While they’re still cheaper at Comiket, many circles have recognized the need to provide something more to encourage fans to attend (or just to show gratitude to those who do show up), and that’s where the copy book comes in.

Step 7 Show up and sell!

At some point before 9:30 an event staff member will visit you at your table where your participation will be officially registered. You must provide both a sworn statement that you’re not selling anything illegal and copies of the books you’ll be releasing that day to the staff, and then you’re clear to go.

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.