[KineJapan] Copyright in Japan, Again

[Mark Roberts]

Hi Markus,

I'm curious about this too, so I spent a few minutes digging.

The ACA has a page that tries to explain the copyright law and "free use", such as it is:

http://www.bunka.go.jp/chosakuken/gaiyou/chosakubutsu_jiyu.html

It looks like the law addresses a bunch of edge cases for consumption, but not much in the way of "transformative" uses. Not surprising, I guess.

The Copyright Division of the ACA also has a service for educators, though I imagine they just the basic cases (i.e., industry PR):

http://www.bunka.go.jp/chosakuken/index_4.html

Perhaps they could be queried directly, putting those tax dollars to work !

Finally, here is an article from 2009 about both free and transformative use:

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/ss/sansharonshu/451pdf/03-09.pdf

It seems to be making a case for an expanded frame of free use in Japan.

Best,

M.

On Jul 26, 2013, at 7:44 AM, Markus Nornes wrote:

> That's very similar to the basis SCMS has used for its fair use case (official statements and documentation on their website, as well as Bordwell's blog). 
> 
> What about documentary films? If a film draws on bits of other films or news broadcasts (or any kind of copyrighted material) to make an argument—and not necessarily involving parody—is the filmmaker in an analogous position as the scholar? They are in the United States, at least since the fair use movement here took hold some years back.
> 
> Markus
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Mark Roberts <mroberts37 at mail-central.com> wrote:
> On Jul 24, 2013, at 1:22 AM, Markus Nornes wrote:
> 
>> It sounds like "transformation" and fair use are built into Japanese copyright law. Anyone have a handle on that? Does Japanese law have anything like the "four factors" guiding fair use in the US? Is there a decent gloss on this?
> 
> Regarding fair use, I believe this exists in Japan, for DVD stills at least.
> 
> When I encountered this issue last year, everything pointed to article 32.1 of the Japanese copyright law (著作権法第32条), according to which academics are entitled to reproduce quotations for research purposes. Two conditions must be met: (1) the quotation must be a smaller unit than the entire text, where "smaller" means a fragment, and does not concern the size of the image; and (2) the purpose of including the quotation should serve some kind of argument or analysis. I.e., it's not just there to "look good".
> 
> I am not sure how the TPP provisions on copyright would interact with this existing law, but it sounds like it would be a new channel in which rights holders could assert their claims.
> 
> M
> 
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Markus Nornes
> Chair, Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> Professor, School of Art & Design
> 
> Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
> 6348 North Quad
> 105 S. State Street
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
> 
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20130726/5901ddbb/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
KineJapan mailing list
KineJapan at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan