11.03.07

Hi-Five My Remix

Posted in Anime, Appleology, Rants, Writing at 8:27 am

I’d been vaguely aware that the current issue of Wired– which I read only occasionally, sadly– had something rather interesting, but for the life of me I couldn’t quite recall what. (This lapse certainly could not have been the result of my Pokemon obsession, or my furious and frantic NaNo preparation, no sirree.) As it turned out, the feature that had caught my attention was a look at the manga industry as it exists in Japan. I’ll start by briefly recapping the article, then give my thoughts.

(EDIT: Incidentally: I was surprised, after my voice gave out yesterday, to find copies of Leopard at freakin’ Best Buy. I mean, the most stridently anti-Mac place I could think of now has a huge Apple display where they maybe once had a plasma screen showing off the latest DDR. Meh. You win some, you lose some, really. Related to this, Leopard is nice, very nice. Installing Leopard is unimaginable pain. Right, back to the Wired rant.)

Wired’s angle on the industry wasn’t in the mainstream, Chris Hansen, “this is what your kids are doing, stop them from having fun at all costs” vein, for the simple reason that Wired’s readership are likely to be the ones reading teh magna bokks. Wired has always been on the somewhat bleeding-edge of the IT and computer culture, and I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that they’re now focusing more on the periphery culture surrounding manga in its native land. Specifically, Wired looked at the industry as a bit of a legal curiosity for its tacit acceptance of the grey-area doujinshi market (which the article author analogizes to a “remix” of the original work– thus the Freezepop-inspired title of this post). The reporter stopped at two comic festivals, Comic Ichi and Super Comic City– I was actually expecting him to at least name-drop Comiket, but oh well. He emphasized and reinforced the perceived pervasiveness of the medium, at least in Japan’s urban areas (though it should be noted that I’d like to get a perspective from outside of the major cities), but his key point was that the industry is thriving by coexisting with what would be seen in any other nation as a huge, organized cartel of intellectual property thievery.

Both the doujinshi authors– that is, the people who create and sell works derivative of published, professional works– and the actual professional authors offered insight on why the coexistence of the two markets worked as well as it did. The consensus was that there was an implicit, unspoken agreement that allowed the creativity (as it were) of the doujinshi artists to flourish without incurring harm on the profitability of the progenitor works. Setting aside the questions of quality of work, the key element that makes doujinshi a survivable hobby or medium is an element of self-restraint that most, if not all, semi-professional artists show in creating and distributing the work. The phrase used often in the article was “as long as they (the doujinshi artists) don’t go too far”, with going too far indicating massive print runs that obliterate sales or demand of the original work. I haven’t swooned over CLAMP in a while, but when Nanase Ohgawa of that studio was shown three fan-works of their series, in varying degrees of variance from the original themes (to put it mildly– the phrase “where the female android expands the frontiers of ‘friendliness’”, in reference to Chii, is… well, improbable within the context of the series, of course, but it’s still a funny phrasing), she responded with delight and approval before being somewhat reined in by her ‘handlers’. (And the use of that particular word has me suddenly envisioning Ohgawa dressed as her character Hinoto from “X/1999″, with IP lawyers flanking her.)

ANYWAY. The basic point of the Wired article uses a phrase by Lawrence Lessig which I found to be a little fascinating: “read/write society”. The concept of direct and substantial consumer feedback and participation is something that the entertainment world is still largely terrified of. The concept being pushed is that everyone is creative, everyone has the potential to bring something new to the table. People are skittish about competition, and anything that could be remotely viewed as a threat to the bottom line is usually not tolerated well by the media. Still, the fact is that the industry stagnates without new blood. IP companies (as displeasant as the concept is, they do exist– like mosquitoes) walk the thin line of crushing competition and discovering new talent. So, the bottom line really is that the West (as it were) could support the read/write model. And there’s an example of that sitting in my Gamercard right now; without Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, and other community-based content, Half-Life might not have been as popular or enduring as it was to provide the resources (over time) to produce truly innovative games like Portal.

There is indeed a market for individual creativity. The advent of the information age– which isn’t just the internet anymore, really– has enabled even the smallest niche interest group to become global. There’s problems of ego, scope, and relevance, as with all media, but the important point is that the power of distribution– of propagation of the stories, art, music, or whatever– are no longer in the hands of a few wealthy individuals, who see the arts as an investment, and only fund those things which they feel will have a good return. Sound business, lousy culture. I don’t want to sound all millennial, pre-bubble, “information wants to be anthropomorphized” here, but it does have a segment of truth to it. Profit can’t always be measured in simple monetary terms. That’s why there’s public-funded art, stuff which is done to advance human thought and culture– or even just for a laugh, or a different perspective.

I’m not averse to the concept of fan-created material. If I was, I would be a huge flaming hypocrite– hell, it’s what got me into this whole noveling thing in the first place! More than that, I can see both sides of the argument. If distribution wasn’t an issue, there’s the risk that a fan work could supplant the original. I don’t really see an issue with this, though, because what’s to say that the original couldn’t have been improved by the fan’s involvement? More to the point, what’s to say that some folks might want to go down that path, while others might want to stay with the original. If distribution is not an issue, then the idea of the original being somehow destroyed or rendered useless/obsolete by fan works becomes complete nonsense. Now, granted, you don’t want people misrepresenting the works– for example, explicitly offensive material being passed off as work of the original authors– and I can see the need for that type of intellectual property protection. I just happen to think that the definition of “harmful misrepresentation” should err on the side of permissiveness.

Case in point, a few days ago, I read a news story about J. K. Rowling’s publishing house blocking the publication of a compendium of information about the Harry Potter universe. The information is freely available online, and Rowling herself has shown support for the project (a wiki-style effort), but in a paper-and-ink book form, it seems to compromise the original story in some way. The real issue here is that the compendium authors are looking to make money on what’s essentially the same story. I can see that, but don’t hide behind the bullshit excuse of ‘integrity’. Say that they’re ripping off Rowling’s work and be done with it. I also think the compendium should be allowed to be produced and sold, as it’s to the Potter books as a dictionary entry about “lasagna” is to an actual plate of the food. You know what lasagna is by reading the entry, but you still haven’t had any. Likewise, reading spoiler after spoiler of a book does ruin the ending, but it doesn’t black out or annihilate the writing in the actual book. (note: I honestly don’t care too much about spoilers being allowed or forbidden as long as they’re properly declared, so people who don’t want to read them– like me– don’t have to read them until they’re ready.)

I’ve done little to put my money where my mouth is– while I’ve written some fan works myself in the past (and received a LOT of praise for them, mind), nothing I’ve done ‘professionally’ has been revealed to the public gratis. That might just change here in the coming year, but we’ll see (no promises). Actually, now that I think about it, some of my “professional” work is out there, freely available and mutable with my blessing. Matter of fact, you’re reading it right now.

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