I had to tell you twice
I said don’t make me tell you twice! You never listen to me, internet!
It would seem as if the collective Anime Blogging Attack Force (note: different from the Anime Blogging Illuminati, which I have only barely penetrated) has shot back responses in a number of different ways. Some shot back enlightened responses, but most of what came in rang to the tune of “THAT’S HARRRRD.” A variety of other points became running themes throughout the posts, and I’d like to take a moment to highlight those.
1: Legality
“But wahhhhh”, you cry in an incomprehensible, animal-like tone, “fanart is already infringing upon copyrights!” And I, while listening to Pizzicato Five’s 1987 album “Couples”, clad in a black beret and 1500 yen yukkuri shirt respond in an upper class, scholarly tone with, “You’re missing the point, good sir.” The point being, it’s not a matter of law. It’s matter of simply not being a total jerk.
2: Politeness and why you should care
“BUT WAHHHH,” you shriek, while destroying your keyboard not unlike an angry German kid, “you’re being a dick yourself! Who are you to parade politeness?! Furthermore, why should I care about those racist, terrible Japanese people who hate me?!?!” And once again, I respond after a sip of BOSS COFFEE with a long string of sentences (a paragraph, if you will) I don’t feel like putting in quote marks.
Think about Western fandom for a second. What does Western fandom do? Western fandom steals. A lot. How do you watch your anime? You steal it. How do you masturbate to those fresh-from-Comic-Market-doujinshi? You steal them. How do you listen to the new, hot anime opening single? You steal it. How do you look at Megami posters? You steal them. Am I making sense here? Do you get the point? I DON’T THINK YOU GET THE POINT.
However, we have excuses. While you can do all this stuff legally while not-in-Japan、 it requires money. Not everyone has that. I sure don’t. In a way, those things are “necessary” evils (necessary in quotes for obvious reasons.) I feel guilty, yeah. I do end up buying a lot of that stuff, though. But still, it’s bad. It doesn’t give our bros in Japan any reason to like us. I mean, we’re a bunch of criminals, and no-one likes criminals.
But–and this is a rather large but–we do have full control over the use of fanart on our blogs. Our blogs, which contain awful, misguided and un-researched opinions that would make the likes of Carl Gustav Horn laugh. If I was some Japanese dude and I saw my art posted on an Anime Blogger Illuminati blog (the Anime Blog Attack Force is almost as bad) without so much as a link back to my site, I’d get all Japanese-passive-aggressive about it. Don’t you get it? You’re making people angry! That’s why they made that no-longer-updated OFP site three years ago!
Why should you care? Well, I generally don’t care what people think about me, which is why I often write in a lofty, condescending tone. However, doing this doesn’t involve me actively using a fellow fan’s creation. Everything I’m writing is my own. When you use a piece of fanart you didn’t draw (specifically Japanese fanart in this case) on your blog to illustrate your stupid point about how Gundam 00 is totally deep, dude, like it or not, you’re now dealing with another culture, another set of rules, and a completely different mindset from your own, suburban, white picket fence outlook. And you need to respect that. You should care about what they think about this, since they made that piece of art you’re stealing shamelessly.
3. Sources
“BUT WAHHH–” ok I’ll stop. So, you say sourcing is hard? It isn’t. Pop into any IRC channel with decent people, drop an image link, ask for the source, and you’ll get a bunch of responses. Same works on Twitter. It’s not difficult. I’ve done it many times.
Say it’s an old image from deep in the depths of your harddrive. You have no idea where it came from. No one else you know knows either. BUT YOU REALLY WANNA USE IT. Suck it up, boy. Pop on pixiv or danbooru (no, danbooru is not evil, it’s a fine showcase of artwork that’s mostly sourced) and find something else that works just as well, and credit the artist. Hell, you don’t need to use fanart at all. Use a screencap! To take it even further, who even needs images? Your shitty one-liners suck anyway! Learn to write, why don’t you! Take a composition class! Read back issues of Animerica! Listen to Anime Wor–I’m getting off track.
To put it simply, you have no fucking excuse.
4. Watermarks
Why don’t the Japanese watermark? Because unlike you, Westerner, the rest of the world has a concept called “humbleness.” Well, it’s actually more because most of these works are now posted to the (rightfully so) insular pixiv community, so watermarks aren’t really needed. But really, it just plum makes sense to not use it if you didn’t make it. Like I mentioned above–if you really want to use it and have the source, go ahead. If you don’t, suck it up. We’re all adults here.
I know nothing I say will do anything, but something had to be said. The fact that this hasn’t been brought up for this long is shocking, and I’m glad that I was able to touch some hearts, while at the same time making a lot of people mad because I called them what they clearly are.
And that is a bunch of fucking thieves.
Also, “human trash.”
Well said. Even though I usually don’t post fan-art on my blog, when I do, I’ll make sure to properly give the artist credits.
>> It isn’t.
I think it’s pretty annoying to do. If I was home I can probably pull up sources rather quickly, but that’s an additional 1-30 minutes I have to spend working on some irrelevant part of my site (since I tend to use joke images anyways). But forget about it if I was on the road or at work.
>> Why don’t the Japanese watermark?
Watermark is gay anyways. If you’re l33t you wouldn’t use it to begin with. Unless you are gofu.
HEY, YOU
YES, YOU
YOU SHOULD WATCH LAGANN-HEN WHILE YOU’RE STILL IN JAPAN
HOW COME YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED LAGANN-HEN WHEN YOU’RE IN JAPAN?!
WHAT KIND OF FREAK ARE YOU?!
I watched it months ago… and podcasted about it…
OK, so we source fanart. That still isn’t going to change their opinion of us that western otaku are a bunch of entitled, thrifty douchebags that pride themselves on not paying for anything.
All I can say is A-frakking-men. I wholeheartedly agree. I feel ashamed that I steal as a part of my major hobby, but I largley can’t avoid it livivng in the west. But my guilt does generate alot of business for J-List and the like 8D
@Tatsujin – You are missing the point. Their opinion of us, as it stands is well deserved. Sourcing this fanart isn’t a miracle cure for that. But, it IS a first step.
LINK THE PODCAST, PLZ, I WANT TO HEAR YOUR IMPRESSIONS
1) Caps lock is cruise control for cool, but you still need to steer.
2) The archives are in the right hand pane. Use them.
Ah come on. You had a fair point to make at the beginning of all this but now you’ve just turned it into an attack on the anime blogging community and western fandom in general. If I use fanart, I should link back to the original artist, fair enough. But by now you’re just being whiny
Typing Lagann-hen yields no results.
>>and I’m glad that I was able to touch some hearts
nopleasenopleaseno
Try ‘Podcast’. And if Lagann-hen isn’t listed in the episode description, you should probably just listen to all of them – there haven’t been all that many, and it’s all been good stuff imo.
Kudos on addressing point one though! 8D
Despite downloading the latest OST tracks for whatever show I want comes, I still show my support by buying things like merchandise, artbooks and the shows on DVD if they make their way for the R1 market.
It was fascinating to see this entire argument go from “hey guys, it would be pretty cool if you could try to credit fanartists” to “WESTERN FANS ARE THIEVES AND HUMAN TRASH”. GJ.
I would like to see a convincing argument towards the contrary!
What’s the point in arguing with people who aren’t prepared to listen? Now you just seem like someone screaming “PEOPLE AREN’T DOING EXACTLY WHAT I SAY SO THEY ARE HUMAN TRASH”. You’re pushing this despite the point that people have listened and responded, more positively than negatively. Wasn’t the whole point to draw attention to this issue? Job done, you don’t have to be such a fucking douche about it.
“Hell, you don’t need to use fanart at all. Use a screencap!”
Only after contacting the animators who worked on that particular frame and gaining their express permission for you to use their work, I assume. It’s a simple matter of respect and not being a total jerk.
Is this the PodCast?
http://blog.mistakesofyouth.com/2009/05/18/moy-podcast-2-beyond-the-time-episode-15%E2%80%93-mike-dent-talks-a-lot-about-gurren-lagann/
The jerk attitude is necessary to effect change. Beatings work better than hugs. If you sit around saying “c’mon guys, be nice and use Pixiv!”, not nearly as many people would pay attention. Same goes for the opposing side. The “you guys are complacent pussies for complaining about how we don’t link to you even though you don’t mark your images or otherwise indicate how to find you” argument encourages the development of better means of identifying artists. I look forward to seeing an English-friendly Pixiv in the near future, assuming one doesn’t already exist.
Man people sure do love the taste of a good troll.
Well said, Scamp. That was the impression I got aswell.
WAH, for the life of me I can’t get a bead on you. It seems that you really want to help better all of this, but the methods you use and going “I don’t care what people think of me” makes me question your.. Ambition to do it? maybe even if you’re really passionate about it.
Or that could be some funny “If I say I don’t care I can brush off criticism” mechanism, there.
It seems you act like a Catalyst most of the time, bringing it up in your “trademark” way, then letting all of those interested duke it out, not personally doing much more for the cause.
But why be passionate about the cause and not try harder to make it work?
I can’t read you.
It bugs me! :(
Maybe it’s my fault for taking this too seriously, thinking there might be more meaning behind this other then trying to garner replies. But a good Movement can be brought down by a bad supporter, so I’m trying to see the opposite, I guess.
—
Also, BakaRaptor,
I agree on the English-friendly Pixiv thing, but I have to say, while “Beatings work better than hugs” will get more people to pay attention, I don’t think it will get any of them to try and comply.
Crappy analogy ahead, but, It’s like shouting “ASSHOLES, !” while at the store. People will turn a head towards you, but no ones gonna give any thought to what you said while shouting if you couldn’t convey it in a decent way.
I’ve never seen someone change anything they do when they’re insulted.
In fact, it usually makes them lean even further towards doing what they were doing before, but caring even less, which in this case would lead to the Japanese hating us even more, if it’s possible. Pretty much making the “Noble Movement” that was invoked backfire.
This really brought on much more discussion about why people are acting like jerks over this, than it did bring discussion on how to better the problem, it seems..
Hell, it’s the only part of all this I even care about.
I don’t really care about the Butthurt artists if they act like dicks anymore, really, but this has lead to some fascinating blog entries and comments.
+1 Positive Agreement to wah
Think about Western fandom for a second. What does Western fandom do? Western fandom steals… From Japanese pirates. A lot. How do you watch your anime? Japanese tv/dvdrippers(most of the time). How do you masturbate to those fresh-from-Comic-Market-doujinshi? The Japanese fans scan them. How do you listen to the new, hot anime opening single? The Japanese rip them. How do you look at Megami posters? Japanese fans scan them.
Yarr matey.
shit we do here and shit they do across the pond will always sometimes seem weird or fucked up to the other side. unless we all fall under some totalitarian one-world regime anytime soon, we’re all going to have differing opinions. when you say that we should prostrate ourselves to these fanartists, i don’t see how that’s exactly meeting common ground.
i don’t use or remember using fanart on my blog or really plan to in the foreseeable future, but going through the first topic, i’m going to agree with the people who are complaining about pixiv being exclusively in japanese. if pixiv is this holy grail of fanart and proper ownership, why are they not meeting us “western human trash” in the middle by making its content available in english? if i’m going to meet their demands of politeness and all that jazz, they’re going to have to meet some of my demands which would make it a lot easier for me to meet theirs.
also, after the shitstorm from that previous post, i thought this topic was bled dry… apparently not.
This post is directed not (only) to WAH, but all the waaaaaaahs he’s trying to stand up for. They expect me to find them, so they’re probably able to find my opinion amongst a bunch of other dumb comments on some site 99% of the internet has never heard off. WAH, you’re fighting the good fight dude, seriously man, seriously. It’s not like you’re acting like a crazy and silly Japanophile at all, never heard of that.
“It’s matter of simply not being a total jerk.”
Imho, it’s a big jerk action to hide among wailing faggots whilst making it pretty much impossible to be reliably found by the majority of the internet.
Putting a single URL to your website on the piece of already copyright infringing (lol truth) fanart isn’t going to ruin said piece of art and will result in people being able to find and thus credit you to please your ass. Instead of putting up stupid one-sided demands whilst trying to hide on the internet is really fucking pathetic. Wouldn’t you be annoyed if you tried to buy something, but the seller put up a bunch of burning hoops for you to jump through first before you could pay?
And this is the internet for crying out loud. If you are going to put stuff you made on the internet, and want to be credited or linked to, use a Uniform Resource LOCATOR. Come half-way, make it so that the buyer only needs to walk to the cash register and tell the cashier he wants to pay.
And let us not forget, laws in the 21st century wild west, HA! Silly WAH. Japanese fans of American TV shows also pirate in abundance over the backs of American TV ripping groups.
“We’re all adults here.”
Yet you lot are crying over spilled beans. Humbleness != stupidity. Art defacing watermarks = stupidity and lack of humbleness indeed (dumb Americunts who watermark), a small link in the corner of the fanart = smart and still humble, like the tags/logo inside my Threadless shirts.
Lol, fanartists crying and putting up unreasonable demands and crying some more. Who the fuck would even ‘steal’ and claim your art WAH?
Non-exclusive use, even without permission, is not “stealing”. It just isn’t.
Saying that it is distracts from your valid point, which is that using someone else’s work without giving them credit for that work is rude.
leave it to WAH to make an ass out of himself instead of be reasonable. But that’s your thing I guess,
who… the fuck… cares….
@kevo: Who cares? Well, people who draw, let it be as a hobby, profession, or for any other reason.
@wah: Unless it gets in the way of the original image, signatures don’t count, right?
All of us benefits on what is on the internet, and yes, I respect the fact the the artists also wants to be credited, but then again, I believe that the artists should be the ones to do the initiative to put up their credits, signatures or whatever they want since they were the ones who decided to upload it on WorldWideWeb. They should have known others could use it as well.
Looking the source up in many cases doesn’t even require ASKING someone. If you have an old, decent piece of art hidden somewhere on your harddrive, just use http://iqdb.org/ or some similar imagesearch site, drop the link or file in there, wait a second, and BAM, in most cases you’ll have a danbooru link which has the source named and linked. Pixiv profile included.
If that search doesn’t yield a result, and you’re too sociophobic/lazy to -ask- someone who might know, find a different pic. It isn’t that hard.
I personally hate intrusive watermarks that destroy otherwise perfectly good images, so the least I can do is credit the artist. I’ve always figured this was common sense for any semi-decent human being, so I have to say that, misplaced tone or not, I’m completely with wah on this one.