Many months ago, I drafted a post that listed some of my favorite anime opening sequences, annotated with YouTube links for illustration. I had planned on saving it on a rainy day, but that rainy day never came. Not wanting the post to go to waste, I decided yesterday to publish it. However, in checking the various YouTube links, I was surprised to find that few still worked. Most of the videos had been removed by request of the license holders, and replacements were nowhere to be found. I did find some hilarious Catalan language versions of the Maison Ikkoku OPs, however, so all was not lost.
Still, the more I thought about it, the more I questioned the value in removing OP and ED sequences from YouTube. While I understand and support the efforts of license holders to have full episodes and DVD extras removed, the removal of OP and ED sequences strikes me as poor business acumen. After all, an OP or ED sequence on its own has little monetary value. It does, however, have significant marketing value.
Buyers of R1 DVDs have probably noticed that domestic distibutors often include unedited OP sequeneces on discs as previews for future releases. An attractive and relevant OP sequence is sometimes the best advertisement available for a series, as it often provides a glimpse of its animation style, character designs, setting, and production staff. For this very reason, I often find myself searching out OP sequences for shows I’m curious about. And I know I’m not alone. Read through the avalanche of posts on anime blogs in the first couple of weeks of a new anime season, and you’ll find many reviews of new shows that make specific mention of OP and ED sequences. It’s something we pay attention to.
Thus, having OP and ED sequences available for viewing on YouTube is something that I believe provides value to license holders. After all, it’s free advertising. Granted, I suspect the removal of OP and ED sequences from YouTube is mostly a result of many Japanese license holders’ “scorched earth” policy in dealing with the popular site (Step 1: Search for “Haruhi”, Step 2: Send in the lawyers). However, I wonder if they’ve even considered the potential value in allowing OP and ED sequences to remain on the site - if not even considered uploading the content to the site themselves, as some American broadcasters do?
Given that fans are generally responsible for posting such material to YouTube in the first place, one has to wonder: how do license holders view fans who distribute copyrighted promotional material online without permission? I really am curious, seeing as I do just that on a regular basis. Look at the image at the top of this very post. That’s copyrighted promotional material. However, what good is promotional material if people don’t see it? Hence, I have no qualms with publishing it here, especially at such a small resolution that it’s no longer useful for printing or high quality repoduction. If I can sell someone on a show by pairing imagery with positive words, I’ve only potentially put money in the licenseholder’s pocket. And they didn’t even have to pay me a consulting fee.
However, even though I’m perfectly comfortable with publishing offical promotional material on the site, I do my best to avoid publishing the personal work of doujinishi artists and the like. I used to do so in the past, but have since made it a general policy not to. After all, they’re indivdual fans much like myself, pouring an inordinate amount of time and effort (and love) into their work, and I’m simply not comfortable exploiting that for my own purposes without permission or proper attribution. Would I be happy if some upstart blogger started republishing my posts on their own site? Of course not. Would I be happy to see my photos published elsewhere without proper attribution? Of course not.
And, yes, I recognize the obvious hyprocrisy in my actions. Intellectual property is intellectual property, after all, regardless of who the owner happens to be. It’s something I’m sensitive to, especially given what I do for a living. However, I can’t deny that, as an anime fan and blogger, I want to promote the shows I love to the best of my ability, and republishing promotional material is a small part of how I do so. I believe my actions serve the best interests of license holders… but would they feel the same?
I think you make a good point as the difference between a fansub and an opening sequence is that watching the former makes me less likely to obtain a r1 dvd and the second increases the chance that I will buy the series in question. However with a site as big as youtube I have the feeling that deleting the opening sequences is a result of quick and dirty policing by an overwhelmed moderator staff rather than the actual will of the companies in question.
In before Locke.
My guess would be it has to do with the music, and any potential soundtrack sales, more than the actual animation from the op/ed scenes.
dude those are some incredible photos you got in flikr… its a shame theres no hi-res there winkwink
Jaalin, if you click on the “All Sizes” button on the individual photo pages (look above the photo itself), you can see larger versions. The true high-res versions and originals, however, I generally keep to myself, as I occasionally license photos for commercial use.
Posting a picture doesn’t help promote the show much if you don’t mention where it’s from. :) I have no idea where the picture at the top of this post is from.
And if I do know it, it means I’ve seen and I already know if I like it or not.
Luke, that picture would be from “Bottle Fairy”, a short anime with short episodes about four little fairies living in the human world for a year to study human culture so they can become humans themselves. Each episode takes place in a different month with the fairies learning about a piece of culture for that month (such as school entrance ceremony, summer swimming, New Year’s Day, and Valentine’s Day). I say, if you have interest in 1) Japanese culture, 2) comedy, and 3) cute things, it’s a must-have purchase.
But, what I want to know is: Is there a larger version of the image, something, I don’t know, desktop wallpaper size? I’d love for my laptop to show off Chiriri, Kururu, Oboro, Hororo, and Sararin, but the ending theme artwork (a different one every episode!) are too low quality on the DVD to make desktop wallpapers from =(
Ah, I left a comment without addressing the post itself! I agree completely about intros and outros being items which are good for fans showing off something of the shows they like. I don’t think the argument of selling soundtrack CDs (although I understand the argument, and believe it could be true) is a good one, for the reason that if someone wants the sound track, then they probably already own the DVD series and can rip the intros and outros from there (I know I do!)
Personally, I’d like to see licensing companies release the first episode of every show they have for free on their web site, for preview purposes. I received this one magazine (NewType, I think) which has a DVD with the first episode of various anime and other Japanese shows. I haven’t removed the wrap from the magazine yet, but I may just to check out “The Fuccons”.
To Luke,
It’s from Bottle Fairy.
Cheers.
I would like to be positive and think that the companies like us in getting the word out, but not necessarily in the way we’re doing it. I’ve been thinking about this too, but wonder to myself, “How can people understand a little bit of what I’m talking about if I don’t have any visual representation of it?”. But then you have people like Hung who apparently asked companies for material to review/promote, and he’s been having a fun time with it there it seems.
We anime bloggers try to spread and promote anime in any convenient way. Thats why we usually try to mention the respective owners in anime productions but thats not always the case.
Attribution is only a little part of it and very appreciated, but with licence holders there will be always legal issues involved, i think.
And Jeff, as i’ve have said before, cool pictures.
It’ll just be a matter of time before it becomes cool for the distributors to put OP/ED on Youtube. I believe a lot of music companies are starting to do this with music videos. At the moment, they probably are just asking Youtube to blanket-remove anything with certain keywords in it, hence the short-sighted removal of various anime OP/ED.
TheBigN: I am not a lawyer, but it seems likely to me that your use of visual representations (e.g., screenshots and promotional material) in your blog for review purposes is well within fair-use.
The law isn’t supposed to be stupid in itself, though people can make stupid uses of it. I think Jeff’s hit on one of those stupid uses. Youtube probably doesn’t bother with anything of the sort, but it would be interesting to see someone challenge this sort of thing — posting an OP/ED (since it is a tiny part of an episode, or “complete work”) could probably survive on fair use grounds:
1) it’s a small part of the complete work
2) it’s not being used for monetary gain that would otherwise go to the rights holders
3) it doesn’t adversely affect the rights holder’s prospects of realizing monetary gain from the complete work
though it’s probably lacking on the fourth requirement for fair use — that the posting be for review or educational purposes (note that a blog hosting an OP/ED, commenting on it and the work it is a part of, would probably be defensible). A stern reply to a cease-and-desist letter citing your own rights (here’s a good example: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/delaney-2-reply.html ) would probably be enough to put the fear of Jefferson in any aggressive IP lawyer, though you might have a struggle with your wimpy ISP.
When Jeff says “intellectual property is intellectual property, after all”, well, it’s not that simple. Basically, if a fair-use defense stood up, by ordering these works off of Youtube, the rights holders are going beyond their rights. They are, in effect, committing a theft from the public domain, a theft that has now interfered with Jeff’s ability to post a creative commentary (though he still got a good blog post out of it), and our ability to enjoy the fruits of his labor (hat tip to Omoikane).
Hey! It’s me again. Yup, you now officially have a web-stalker. Just kidding.
Anyways, I wholeheartedly agree with you. If you aren’t trying to resell or claim as your own, I don’t understand the whole uptight, snooty outlook on copyrighted material that companies express. Personally, I think that they should be rather flattered that one is promoting their work. It spreads the word, does it not.
Oh well, that’s my 2 cents.
I think this whole IP business went FUBAR a long time ago and basically almost nowadays everyone is a hypocrite screaming bloody murder when it comes to his very own IP but don’t give a damn when they don’t expect to get caught. Most people wouldn’t even know that they infringe on someone’s copyrights because many people are horribly naive, misinformed and uninformed. On the other side are the people who use terms like “stealing” and “illegal” very loosely spreading FUD and misinformation, not at all because they intend to but because they are misinformed and use sloppy language. For example, many people claim “MP3s” are illegal, “P2P” is illegal, “file-sharing” is illegal and what not. The danger of this is that it’s a dynamic brain-washing process and people will believe if it because they heard and read it so often. Even if they know it’s not true, they are scared and avoid things which are perfectly legal.
I have to admit it’s a bit odd to read, you consider posting those pictures as promotion. As Luke already wrote, most of the time I don’t have the slightest clue where those pictures are from as they have useless names and there’s no link to anything related either. I’ve asked you one or two times but I certainly won’t do this everytime.
dm, “fair use” is a concept unique to US laws, as far as I know. At least most countries don’t have this exception and using even a small fraction of someone else’s work can get you intro trouble. Then you can argue all day, it’s meant as promotion or whatever. The original author does not have to give a damn about your intentions or opinion and they law is on his side. Nobody claimed law is about fairness. In fact, it certainly is not.
“Fair use” is unique to US law, though I understand that British, Australian, and European law has a similar concept of “fair dealing” — again, the copyrighted work must be excerpted for purposes of research or critique. Jeff’s essay contrasting different anime openings would be an example
I don’t know how widespread the “fair dealing”, “fair use” and related concepts are.
It appears that least one company thinks putting videos up on Youtube is promotion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQ3ln2xnvw