So that “law of anime” thing is now a thing. I don’t think it is a bad read, but I’m not so sure.
I mean, how many people talk about copyright registration? If I didn’t know better I would think this Mr. Sean Thordsen is just fishing for people to register their stuff. It’s kind of what you offer as a small business service if you’re a solo, general practitioner. Heck, I almost did copyright registration for someone (they didn’t want to foot the $35 times a billion or whatever at the time–let’s say you want to register a song, that is $70 for the lyrics and the recording; or you can do a “collection of song lyrics” hack but lol) at the clinic I worked in, because it’s a common thing.
It is a pretty standard POV from a legal professional. Yes cosplay tangos with public performance (but that’s…a really derivative sort of thing, given this is animation). Yes cosplay tangos with copyright not only for the character, but for the designs in the artwork. But I’ll go back to the DMCA legislative debate language: the internet is a copyright infringement machine. There’s not much to that this article has to say, at least at this point.
The article doesn’t really further much about the debate we have about copyright. What it does is illustrate that the war is a real war. Fansubbing is probably one of the less important battles you can fight in this digital age. A vocal cover of a vocaloid song is copyright infringement. A guitar cover of some anime OP is copyright infringement. Copying Yuno’s recipes, thankfully, still isn’t, but if you dressed up as her that might run afoul of the law, if you cooked in public.
Back to the article; it’s full of languages like “a legal copyright” which is groan I mean com’on that’s like saying “a bird eagle.” There’s all kind of cringing verbiage that aren’t really wrong, but those ideas just could be put in a better way. Like the whole section about “consumer” doing anything with copyright–you would think stuff like First-sale Doctrine would be in there, but nope. I mean I read it, I knew what he was getting at the whole time basically, but I also know what he is talking about. I can’t say if someone who is reading about copyright the first time would get all the things he made subtle references to.
What’s probably more disappointing was the lack of mention on copyright on characters, or international copyright whatsoever. There’s some about licensing which is I guess helpful but Justin S. probably knows more about that. So I don’t even know what good that post does to entertain or educate besides to talk about registration LOL.
Come to think of it, this article is kind of forgettable other than the cosplay section, and the ever-necessary reminder about AMV is usually straight-up illegal use of someone’s music. Maybe this is why I wrote this post. And maybe because the dude with the Esq. behind his name could be this guy.
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