CATDOLL: America wants to interfere with Japanese fan creation. Will there be no more pornographic books to read in the future?

The fact that an ACG work can be widely circulated around the world and its popularity continues to ferment is largely inseparable from various fan-made secondary creations among the people! Although Japanese ACG cannot do without fans, in fact, many fan works are basically uncopyrighted. The reason why no one has cared about it is that Japan currently implements the principle of "personal prosecution" in relation to such copyright issues - that is, only the copyright owner can sue the infringer, and the copyright owner generally will not sue the fan works for infringement . Recently, Japan and the United States are negotiating to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), and the issue of copyright protection has become one of the points of disagreement between Japan and the United States !

Japanese law uses the "personal prosecution" for copyright infringement. The public security, procuratorate and courts can only intervene in the investigation when the copyright owner files a lawsuit against the infringer. Generally speaking, Japanese ACG copyright owners turn a blind eye to fan creations and will not take the initiative to sue fan creators. In the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) negotiations, the United States and other countries proposed that Japan should implement the "non-personal prosecution" principle - that is, as long as there is an infringement, no matter what the attitude of the copyright owner is, it will be prosecuted. Once this non-personal prosecution is accepted by Japan, it may bring a serious blow to Japan's fan creations. According to NHK reports, the United States is very eager to push Japan to recognize the "non-personal prosecution" of copyright protection. Those involved in the negotiations revealed that various countries are adjusting the non-personal prosecution of copyright protection, and Japan is among them.

If Japan really implements "non-personal prosecution", the ComicMarket venue will probably become like the picture on the right...

In addition, in Japan, due to the huge impact of TPP on the doujinshi and Japanese anime markets, cartoonist Ken Akamatsu, in order to support the doujinshi market where he came from, cooperated with Creative Commons personnel and proposed five solutions, namely: 1) Authors and cartoonists make a declaration of "support for doujinshi" 2) The scope of derivative works is to prohibit complete plagiarism and allow doujinshi creation 3) Introduce the concept of "same-day authorization" to allow doujinshi creation only on the day of the doujinshi exhibition 4) Let comics use Creative Commons authorization, as long as the source is marked, they can be modified or participate in doujinshi exhibitions 5) Publishers publicly support derivative works.

Although each plan has its shortcomings, for example, the effectiveness of plans 1 and 2 is relatively low, plan 3 cannot protect fan behavior outside of fanzine exhibitions, and plans 4 and 5 may be contrary to the publisher's position of "obtaining profits". However, these plans also show the positive attitude of Japanese cartoonists to protect the animation industry and maintain fan culture. Dansha has expressed support for Ken Akamatsu's proposal, and some Japanese animation and comics copyright holders have already given their own fan creation authorization regulations. These copyright holders are still inclined to support fan creations that are not overly commercialized.

Will we never see such "excellent" doujinshi again? ToT