Japanese artistes and the thing called Portrait Rights.
Julius_Firefocht | March 9, 2010The Malaysian leg of the May’N Asia Tour has just ended, and already there’s quite a bit of controversy regarding concert images and photos that were taken and posted on personal blogs, despite the wishes of May’N’s management that such images and photos not be taken. Before we continue, we should establish an understanding. There is no grey area about this issue… this is a matter of black and white, right or wrong. May’N’s management is certainly within their legal rights to demand that such pictures be taken down, and yes, I will come out and say it: the people who have taken the photos are most certainly in the wrong.
Reasons after the jump.
To start off, I shall quote a paragraph from an article written by Houkoholic from Seiyuu3.
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Now this may seem strange to some of you, but Japan has a concept of “Portrait Rights” (I seem to recall that some other countries such as Hong Kong has it too, but don’t quote me on that) – I won’t go into details, there’s a much better article about the concept here, but basically it boils down to that you are not allowed to use any pictures of any person without their consent because it is a violation of personal rights as well as property rights, this is one of the reason why if you visit Japanese blogs, especially those similiar to the Akiba blog varity, you would find the webmasters painstakingly mosaic out all the faces on the photos.
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There it is. Portrait Rights is the reason why we are not allowed to take photos of Japanese artistes and post them on the Internet. A violation of personal rights as well as property right… would you like people to take photos of you eating lunch, without your permission? I suppose not. Whenever a person takes pictures of a Japanese artiste without their permission, he or she is infringing on the personal rights of that artiste. Not the behaviour of what I would call a fan, as I am sure you would agree.
This is the reason why Japanese fans are so “well behaved” at anime events, for lack of a better term. They know and respect the rights of their idol, and they would not want to do anything to hurt the interests of their idol. This is also the reason why the AFA Committee were so strict on the “no photography” policy in the K-On Girls and all concert segments in AFA for the past two years.
“So what can the Japanese do if we ignore their requests? They can’t do anything to us, hahaha.”
Erm, think again.
The artistes’ management might or might not resort to legal actions, but that is hardly the biggest threat. What they CAN do is to pull out of the region completely, and leave South-East Asia a barren wasteland devoid of live performances from Japanese seiyuu-singers. And trust me, word and reputation spreads very fast within the Japanese anison industry.
That’s right. No more May’N for Singapore and Malaysia, no more Ichirou Mizuki, no more appearances by the K-On Girls, no more epic performances by Yoshiki Fukuyama. No more Shoko-tan, and no more Minori Chihara for events like Daicon. All is dust in the wake of the stupidity and inconsideration of uncaring South-East Asian “fans”.
No real anison fan in the region wants that to happen, I believe.
The threat is very real, so please, dear readers, consider the industry and the personal rights of the Japanese artistes the next time you might want to take photographs despite requests not to do so. The individual actions of any single person might not matter in the short term, but like the ripples caused by a stone that was thrown into a still pool, such actions might have far-ranging consequences that none of us will be able to predict in the near future.
This is Julius Firefocht, signing off.
@and no more Minori Chihara for events like Daicon Noooooooooooooo......... Well, easily
arkAile | March 9, 2010@and no more Minori Chihara for events like Daicon
Noooooooooooooo………
Well, easily understand. Just always remember you don’t want photo of your idol or artiste you like being posted online without being checked by their management and isn’t taking pictures during live concert very distracting and wasting of time you can spend to enjoy the live?
I think you got the dog and the tail backwards:
omo | March 9, 2010I think you got the dog and the tail backwards: the law is there, but people generally obey rules. Japanese is big on this…and as you know, southeast Asians not so much. The law exists because people generally put up with it anyways, and there is a lot of money to be made in this sort of thing, selling pictures and the like to fans.
In America there’s no law like Japan on this exact issue, but concert management still can impose their own rules (obviously they’re allowed to as a part of the agreement allowing the attendee attending the show). People still sell concert DVDs and the like, and people don’t fret about censoring out people on their own cams on youtube, for bands who don’t care about selling DVDs.
The real open-minded artists, when they tour, they know different countries do things differently, and adopt. It’s not going to be the case all the time, especially for someone like May’n, who’s really just an idol being managed by an agency producing her. You are right to say that it might discourage some artists from doing shows overseas, but I don’t believe you can get around problems like this, in this day and age.
@omo In a sense, I'd rather nurture and develop well behaved
sentinel011 | March 9, 2010@omo
In a sense, I’d rather nurture and develop well behaved fans than developing a region full of photo-taking people at concerts. Letting the public do whatever they please isn’t going to help, either.
well it not very good to take photo of their
amelala | March 9, 2010well it not very good to take photo of their personal things….it’s the same as rest us we dont like pp to just take pic of our own personal things and it not nice -_-”
I myself respect their rights and will NOT take photographs
Ryuuga | March 9, 2010I myself respect their rights and will NOT take photographs of the artists unless its allowed. But how much can i do by jus me alone obeying the rules while i see hundreds over people jus snapping away. I can hardly think of anyway to prevent this type of things unless the organizers do it the hard way…
Because it's more fun to enjoy a concert standing still,
dodgethis | March 9, 2010Because it’s more fun to enjoy a concert standing still, through a shitty camera screen than to use your own eyes and watch the artiste perfom.
in truth without effective enforcement nothing will be done and
Tragic comedy | March 9, 2010in truth without effective enforcement nothing will be done and given SEA peoples’ mentalities, nothing will change till the management a) pulls out or b) relents due to the lucrative $$$ involved.
There are ways to prevent this, it's just whether the
shura | March 13, 2010There are ways to prevent this, it’s just whether the organisers bother to go to that extent.
It’s otakus we are dealing with here, ones who will kao-tao in front of an idol. Telling them to not snap photos of the voice actress or singer that they drool over the net is like asking them to die.
These measures are surprisingly what all singaporeans males will be familiar with, by having a “book-in” point with small lockers and a nice big sign outside the concert hall to declare their camera phones and cameras to be placed in the lockers with keys, or faced with a fine if caught.
I mean that’s if the organisers want to go to that extent, but this beats having to run to the guy snapping away and telling him to put his camera away, OR pointing fingers and shouting at those snapping away. It’s more professional to just do it the SAF way lol.
Like what omo said, it would be good if the artistes themselves can try to adopt the country’s culture wherever they go to perform. The mentality that we have to pay and STILL be incredulously grateful to them for coming has to somehow change. Of course, basic respect must be maintained, but not like we have to worship them while forking out cash. They are here to make a living, we are here to enjoy ourselves, both sides should close one eye. SEA is a big big market, Singapore itself is pretty hardcore too, if just cuz a few jokers manage to snap some photos and they decided to stop coming, then amen. I have nothing to say.
That, or the organisers can come up with a scheme of “official permission-asking” rather than just being extra kind to various acquintances, events like this always has the ‘guys who knows everyone’ getting everything and creating unneccessary paranoia among other otakus forcing them to resort to extreme measures to get the same treatment (ie, kao tao). If that’s too much, then those of you who have special priviledges just has to shut up and wait till you get home before enjoying your loot and not in front of a pack of wolves, it’s that simple.