In connection with User Submissions, you further agree that you will not: (i) submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant OneManga all of the license rights granted herein;
So.. not all manga are copyrighted? I always thought it's a common practice to claim copyright on anything you own even freebies.
Anyway I ended up reading a whole bunch of stuff about copyright especially about Fair Use rules of thumb. I am quite shocked to read about some of the rules because it applies to students as well. I think I might have broken a lot of rules for my research paper. I did recites the sources but... it seems like according to the rules, that might be not enough.
I did that research in a rush because I totally forgot. Good thing no one will ever read the published research since I doubt there is anything important in it. It's heavy because I put a lot of pictures and repeated instruction in it, not because it has any significance value. I know it sucks but reading what I just wrote about it makes me realizes that it really sucks and I am a bad, hopeless, lazy, unorganized student. I wish I can do it all over again.
Okay, I'm rambling.. So here's where I got my Copyright Crash Course lol :D It's freely provided by The University of Texas System. I guess they use this a lot because there's even an option to Ask a Lawyer. The student, faculty or staff members of The University of Texas System can contact the writer (the lawyer) by email to ask any unanswered question about copyright. That's pretty cool!
Copyright Crash Course is good but it's intimidating to me even though it is written for beginners, probably because there are a lot of text. I prefer tables and points. So I skipped a lot of parts and only read interesting parts and that is rules of thumbs or guidelines about class rooms and course packs, multimedia works, research copies, and software fair use of copyrighted material.
My question is still not answered though. It's probably there but I can't read it lol :D So I visited CRIC (Copyright Research and Information Center) to read the Q&A about Copyright in Japan Series. (Seriously.. Why do I even read this?) I'm pleasantly surprise because CRIC is easy to understand and not intimidating at all even though it's written and translated by Japanese people (this website is in English).
Okay, after reading it (obviously not all since this is a crash course), here's what I get:
All creative expressions are automatically copyrighted in Japan and the owners are not required to put the copyright label on their creations. Which means manga like Bleach, One Piece, and Naruto ARE already copyrighted to the mangakas. Since Japan joined international copyright treaties, the copyright is also protected in other member countries including United States and Malaysia.
Manga = Japanase comic book
Mangaka = People who draw manga
These mangas are not free. People need to buy it to read it. Therefore, while scanning these mangas for private use is okay, sharing these with the public is not okay even if no profit is made because it would be hurting the mangakas' wallets. You would need permission from the mangakas to do that.
With that said.... I wonder if Tite Kubo (Bleach mangaka), Eiichiro Oda (One Piece mangaka), Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto mangaka) and the rests actually give permission to the scanlation groups to scan and translate the mangas? If not, their work is actually illegal even though most mangakas put blind eyes to this. That brings another question..
Scanlation / scanslation = unauthorized scanning, translation, editing and distribution of comics from a foreign language into the language of the distributors.
~ Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanlation
Since most of the manga scanlations and probably all manga scans are illegal... Doesn't that mean *** is illegal too for hosting these scans? I mean, file hosting site cannot be held responsible for illegal upload and download activities by its user because the site has no control over what the users do and the service is actually used for a lot of non illegal activities too. It's like a half and a half but here, probably all of the scans are illegal. Doesn't that make *** guilty too? That's what put Napster down isn't it?
Well, I might be wrong since I'm no expert in law so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Oh and I'm not trying to condemn anyone, that's why I didn't name the site. I'm one of the avid online manga reader too. I could say that most of the mangas are hard to get here (it is and the fact that I'm broke) but the real reason is because I have this strange quirk where I don't like to place anything with eyes inside my bedroom. I feel like it's alive or something. It creeps me out. So, I'm really glad to have this option to read the mangas online.
The reason I first posted this is because I'm just plain curious. Would I stop reading online mangas? Probably, but not now or anytime soon. How can I read this law stuff all day long? I wonder about that myself but the information on CRIC is easy to read and understand so that helps. Another question though, who made the law? Lol, it's time to sleep already! Stop thinking! :D
