AMVs and Funimation's Copyright enforcment comments

[Vlad G Pohnert]

There is an interesting interview with the person who is Funimation's "Infringement Specialist" (the guy who looks into copyright violations for Funimation's Licenses) on anime newsnetwork and the question about AMVs comes up:

Bamboo: So what about fan videos? Say, AMVs? Where does that fit in? Would the Japanese companies have jurisdiction over that, or is that your territory?

Evan: For elements of media that are owned by more than one party, such as the underlying animation, enforcement usually falls upon the party with rights for that territory where such use takes place. Regarding AMV's and fan videos, we don't mind most fan videos, including AMVs. The main reasons for this are that they can often serve a promotional purpose, and legally, they can sometimes constitute Fair Use. The basic thinking going into fan videos is thus: if it whets the audience's appetite, we'll leave it alone. But if it sates the audience's appetite, it needs to come down. Does that make sense?

Bamboo: It makes sense to me, although it seems that Japanese companies don't have the same attitude. Can't they, as copyright holders, shut down American AMV makers?

Evan: I understand that in Japan, fan fiction of all kinds is not only accepted, but encouraged. Fan-created manga, as I'm sure you both know, is apparently huge there. As for the authority of the Japanese to enforce their rights against AMV creators in the U.S., technically, yes, they could. I would be astonished if they ever did so on a large scale. And again, the AMV creators could argue the affirmative defense of "fair use."

Sara: But does artist reproduction fall (a la fanfic, doujin) under a different category of copyright than... like, taking straight clips of the existing animated material for AMVs?

Evan: It's in a different legal category. AMVs are "direct infringement" but fan fiction is a violation of derivative work rights.

You can read the entire thing at : http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/chicks- ... 2009-05-05

Quite intresting.. comments?

Vlad

[rubyeye]

Yeah, I just read that. Probably the only ChicksOnAnime article I've completely read. But anyway .... it was very insightful. I'm actually more surprised they didn't bring up the issue of Crunchyroll's inception of streaming fansubs for $ and starting a company from that. But I guess the legalities of it are moot since everyone is streaming nowadays. Still the AMV issues are interesting.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Personally, I think that AMVs have a much better chance at surviving for a long time at conventions then on the web. at conventions there is no distribution, it's fair use of the anime and the con usually pays the fees to play copyrighted music so there is much weaker grounds there to shut down AMVs both on the anime and music side...

Vlad

[Pwolf]

It is great hear some positive information coming from the source. i've never been afraid of the anime companies shutting us down... it's the music industry i'm afraid of...


Pwolf

[Megamom]

That was interesting, thanks for the information!!

[Castor Troy]

FUNimation has always been cool with amvs.

[trythil]

AMVs are "direct infringement" but fan fiction is a violation of derivative work rights.

So the only time I've heard the term "direct infringement" is with regard to U.S. patent law, not copyright law. Quizlaw has a definition which seems reasonable, but I can't find a definition of "direct infringement" anywhere in U.S. copyright law.

I'm also confused just what he means by that statement. The right to authorize derivative works is one of the exclusive rights granted to a copyright owner; under the definition at Quizlaw, that's direct infringement. Just what is the difference, then?

I'm worried that he's putting AMVs at the same level as direct copying, which is something that people (i.e. Lawrence Lessig) have been trying to disprove for a while as a part of copyright law reform. If this is the case, then Evan Flournoy is your enemy, not your friend.

[TeamCanadia]

Trythil stated my same concern, I was nodding along and agreeing with the article until he made that statement. I'd like to know what he means exactly.

I've always thought the video companies were fine with it as, well, they're getting a commercial. Each series has hundreds, if not thousands of AMVs/Commercials.

Though, I do see why the music companies hate us, even if AMVs DO prompt me to buy the songs, I'm sure some people just loop the AMVs. >.>

[trythil]

The basic thinking going into fan videos is thus: if it whets the audience's appetite, we'll leave it alone. But if it sates the audience's appetite, it needs to come down. Does that make sense?

No.

By that reasoning:

If I make an AMV that makes a show look bad (intentionally or otherwise), then it needs to be taken down. If I make an AMV that makes a show look good, they won't touch it.

Doesn't that eliminate a huge class of commentary? What about parodies or satires? If you saw a FUNimation show, thought it sucked, and wanted to make an AMV that expressed just how much you thought it sucked, what then? And how does that jive with fair use?

[Beowulf]

We've always helped their bottom line.

AMV creators buy DVDs -> edit AMV -> show AMV at convention -> thousands of people see the AMV -> % of people buy's anime DVDs

HypeO spent thousands of dollars on anime. Fucking FLCL dvds for $29.99 for TWO episodes.

Its nice to see them come out and say what we've always known.