> Yoshida has admitted to the charges, saying “I knew it was illegal, even as I was doing it.”
Japan’s “justice” system is based on something outlawed in England nigh on 800 years ago under Magna Carta (remedied as habeus corpus). It’s basically legalised kidnapping by the police where they hold you hostage to yourself until you admit the charges against you. You may be held indefinitely, if the court so wishes.
Thus, his confession should be seen with scepticism as to its truth.
America does this too, the trick they use is holding you indefinitely without having a bail hearing or trial. Kevin Mitnick was imprisoned for five years waiting bail, one of the longest cases of this treatment. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mitnick-rele...
> Since 2002, 779 Muslim men and boys have been held at Guantánamo, nearly all of them without charge or trial. Today, 39 men remain indefinitely detained there, and 27 of them have never even been charged with any crime. Fourteen of those 27 have been cleared for transfer or release, some for years.
This is not a good example of what happens in America in general, since the position of the Bush administration was that Guantanamo Bay was outside of US legal jurisdiction. It was considered a alternative to the US court system.
> In the Bronx, DiMango’s job was to review cases and clear them: by getting weak cases dismissed, extracting guilty pleas from defendants, or referring cases to trial in another courtroom. At the start of 2013, there were nine hundred and fifty-two felony cases in the Bronx, including Browder’s, that were more than two years old. In the next twelve months, DiMango disposed of a thousand cases, some as old as five years.
As I understand it the basis legally is about Guantanamo bay not being formally part of the US, and therefore not subject to the constitution or regular law. Military law probably applies, although I'm not 100% on this.
> This is not a good example of what happens in America in general, since the position of the Bush administration was that Guantanamo Bay was outside of US legal jurisdiction
Then the next logical step is to declare Detroit outside of US legal jurisdiction. This will solve a lot problems. /s
Like every other major city it's halfway there thanks to the "border zone" system (as it's literally on the border), much of the 4th is effectively curtailed already.
And if they can’t be returned then they should be released. The US determined they did nothing wrong. Indefinite detention after a not guilty verdict is not an option.
Unofficial POW isn’t a status; that’s just a detainee.
The Supreme Court has essentially ruled there is no particular deadline (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barker_v._Wingo). Individual states do have rules, but it varies based on the type of crime, and tend not to match a normal person's definition of speedy.
> Mitnick did not request a speedy trial, in fact he moved to delay the trial.
The prosecution repeatedly (1) refused to provide their evidence in discovery - Mitnick wanted proof to prepare his defence. My reading is that the government was hoping he would just fold, instead of fighting back.
I guess that's why John Oliver has no segments on the American justice system. Oh wait ... /s
Just look at any article that comes up on this site that covers the justice system. It's a hot mess everywhere, to a varying degree.
Japan is no exception, and there are countless number of injustices. But at the very least, the police there don't get to shoot people and walk scott free.
His show does proper research and points to numerous actual cases of harm before making a claim.
Detaining suspects for long periods of time and forcing confessions is a topic that comes up repeatedly, each time with different examples. I don't know how anyone can say with a straight face that this isn't anything of substance.
I've seen travel videos of Japan where the person a local warns do not get arrested in Japan. It takes a month or two to get started as you sit in jail. Then you eventually get a lawyer who probably doesn't speak your language. And Japan has an unusually high 99.9% conviction rate.
> And Japan has an unusually high 99.9% conviction rate.
“The conviction rate is 99.3%. By only stating this high conviction rate it is often misunderstood as too high—however, this high conviction rate drops significantly when accounting for the fact that Japanese prosecutors drop roughly half the cases they are given. If measured in the same way, the United States' federal conviction rate would be 99.8%.”
A basic plot point in the recent Japanese video game Judgment (or Judge Eyes) is the protagonist, a lawyer, getting a not guilty verdict for an accused murderer, and how fabulously rare and out of the ordinary that is.
Also, basically the entire Phoenix Wright series is an exaggerated satire of the Japanese legal system, including the ridiculous way the defense attorney characters you play can only get your clients acquitted by specifically proving that someone else did the crime.
Federal, where it is "well known" that they only try cases that should have plead out, that is "they know they will win."
As someone who has had cases thrown out before trial, and known other people who have been found "not guilty", the conviction rate for non-federal in the US is (very) much lower.
This is what happens when you 1) institutionalise crime syndicates, and 2) maintain a massive territorial presence. Yakuza keep the peace at night, police keep the peace during the day; and there's a police booth (and a Yakuza joint) every few blocks. That means a 24/7 guarantee that, if you fuck with anything, you'll meet speedy (and pretty painful) "justice" before you can say "I want a phone call". It's not pretty but it mostly works. At that point, the rest of the system is basically a formality. The dark side of this is obviously that, if you're a "false positive" (i.e. an innocent caught up in stuff), you're screwed, because the police won't allow your case to ruin their "perfect score" - so guilty you must be.
IMO Japanese culture and lower level of individualism has a lot to do with the low crime rate. That's the main reason why they don't tolerate much bad behaviour in the first place, and have a justice system which reflects that.
I think there is a lot more to it than we Western societies know of.
Take castes for example Japan has castes or "Burakumin" even now in 2023. Anyone who deals with "unclean" job like slaughterhouse, undertaker, obviously Japanese mob (which ironically was created due to the discrimination). Supposedly (and highly likely) the people who were tasked with cleaning up in the radioactive areas of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster were all or labelled Burakumin people.
Then there is Japanese blood personality types which is yet another form of discrimination, lord help you if you're type B.
The indigenous residents of Japan Ainu are also discriminated against.
You can't sign almost any contract in Japan without certifying that you're not a yakuza member, which makes it impossible to do things such as sign up for mobile phone service or even attend a concert.
So racketeering, extortion, arson, kidnapping, human trafficking, drugs, rape, torture, vandalism, child porn and murder are all fine but lying on a form is a bridge too far for the yakuza?
> but lying on a form is a bridge too far for the yakuza?
It's not that it's too far compared to the other stuff, but they also have a hard time catching higher ups with this other stuff, since they don't do it themselves.
So it's actually a very common way to catch them. One from the Yamaguchi clan was caught recently for having subscribed for a point card in a supermarket.
Is their low crime the direct result of that system or are there other reasons?
If it's the system, then should we not expect Japanese living abroad to engage in more crime? Are Japanese-Americans more likely to engage in crime than their ancestors?
On paper they do require the court to do it, but when it's just a formality...
> Suspects can be detained for an "interview" in a daiyō kangoku for as many as seventy-two hours under the Code of Criminal Procedure. After this seventy-two-hour period, prosecutors can request a further ten days' detention of the suspect from a judge. These ten days are frequently used by the investigative authorities to gain confessions from the suspect. After the initial ten-day extension, the prosecutor can request a further ten days of detention from a judge, before the suspect must either be charged or released. Activists claim that requests for pre-trial detention after arrest are almost always granted by judges; in 1987, the rate of approval for all requests was 99.8%
I don't think Western courts approve pre-trial detention at this rate, though I wouldn't be surprised if 99.8% of search warrants are granted, for example.
You mean Britain's current justice system - judging by how many years Julian Assange has been held in prison without charges. Once you get past the propaganda, our Western justice is really nothing to gloat about.
Assange was charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned in 2019.
He was freed from that after serving his sentence. He since been held awaiting extradition after being charged in the US with a ton of crimes
Since then various of appeals have been progressing to extradite him or not, and quite rightly as someone convicted of fleeing bail
He not eligible for bail.
He was convicted of jumping bail. But not of any actual crime. As regards the US, be specific: he's being punished for tarnishing its image by revealing extrajudicial murder on a massive scale.
Jumping bail is a crime, a crime he rightly paid for, and I wouldn’t expect someone who jumped bail to be granted bail.
I’m no fan of the one sided extradition treaty the U.K. and US has, however the US has raised plenty of charges including conspiracy to hack, actually hacking, and the espionage one.
Jumping bail was perfectly justified under the circumstances, since he was at risk of extradition (or extraordinary rendition) to the US, where his chances of a fair trial are nil. As for the alleged offenses, they were not committed on US soil, so they are outside the jurisdiction of American courts.
I'm not familiar with the case, but isn't he essentially fighting to stay in UK prison rather than being moved to the US? Sure, he's also fighting to get out of UK prison, but the main fight is, not getting extradited. This boils down to a preference of where to be imprisoned?
He shouldn't be going to trial in the first place. Journalists shouldn't be prosecuted for exposing government malfeasance. And as the alleged crime was not committed on US soil, the charge of espionage in nonsensical, as the US has no jurisdiction. The intention is to make an example of Assange, not to give him justice, hence the prolonged detention in Belmarsh.
The alleged crime was commited on US soil (or was she overseas?) by Manning and Assange is accused of helping facilitating it. Assange has shown himself to be an extraordinary flight risk and is fighting his extradition, hence his prolonged detention in Belmarsh.
Lawyers know the system is fucked and also basically advise false to give false confessions sometimes too, since it's hopeless after a certain point and trying to fight it is seen as delaying the inevitable.
Mark Karpeles seemed to have found a way to navigate the system pretty well. No confession. He was convicted, but doesn't go to prison if he stays out of trouble for 4 years.
Aren’t laws in Japan constructed to be like that? Cumbersome, inefficient and thwarting meaningful progress? When we defeated Japan in WW2 we made sure that they became our “ally” and also had huge role in creating their laws and government. So this is intentional so that they are not able to surpass us ever again. Any reform will be shut down by current japanese government which was and still is propped up by CIA basically.
This is what you get when you lose world war
No. Japanese bureaucracy was always influenced by Chinese bureaucracy, which has always been ponderous and focused on "harmony" more than efficiency. The Meiji period, when they made their huge leap into industrial modernity, was the exception, not the rule.
I'd also take objection with the "surpass us" term. Japan was not "ahead" in technological terms until the late postwar period. Before WW2 they were almost on par, and largely because they made massive efforts to pilfer technology and methodologies from Western Europe. It was after WW2, when they were forbidden from military expansion, that they focused on economic development (again with massive "imports" of know-how), so much that they briefly "surpassed" the by-then-dominant US in certain fields.
>they made massive efforts to pilfer technology and methodologies from Western Europe. //
You can't steal ideas. If they took technology, duplicated it and made it better then that's a good thing.
>so much that they briefly "surpassed" //
They copied, but they got a better grade?
This sounds like a good thing, something all technology companies working in the same area should strive for, and indeed how patents (in a limited way) and open-source work : one creates improvement over the current developments.
Why would you want people spending time 'reinventing the wheel' just because they live in another country. Use the best of tech and make it better if you can.
They've got a much better deal than Eastern Europe, who went into the Soviets' sphere of influence for 50 years. But the US and the UK are willing to fix this by including those countries into NATO and giving the Ukrainians weapons to defend themselves (and the rest of Europe).
Old society arrests youtuber for giving better than paid ads promotion for their game.
silly beliefs about copyrights for certain media was one of major reasons why Kpop crushed Jpop. Kpop companies lets people edit & share all clips freely, Japan only recently start allowing people outside Japan to be able to view their content on youtube.
I want to point out that the argument in the article is that the YouTuber uploaded a video of a graphic novel, not so much a game.
There's a significant difference from showing gameplay of most games, vs visual novels that have basically no real game elements.
I don't claim to know the right answer, just that the statement you're making doesn't highlight the argument being made, which HAS merit worthy of some thought
This is another reason why Sumo which is an amazing martial art never really grew in popularity outside of Japan. Even now, a bunch of us enthusiasts need to watch the bashos with the help of YouTubers who can be DMCAed any moment.
I'm fairly sure Eurosport used to broadcast Sumo back in the late 90s and early 00s, with commentary in either Dutch or English (I forgot). I don't know if they still do.
Being practiced by almost exclusively Japanese probably doesn't help either; you can't root for your "home team", so to speak. No one watched darts in the Netherlands, then a Dutch candidate won the world title 25 years ago and everyone in the Netherlands was watching it.
> Being practiced by almost exclusively Japanese probably doesn't help either; you can't root for your "home team", so to speak.
That depends what you mean by "Japanese". Naturalized Japanese, probably, but a fair number of the wrestlers are originally from Mongolia or Eastern Europe now.
Though I don't follow it myself so don't know how interesting it is. Always wanted to try the food though.
I think that has more to do about the fact that it's actually practiced almost exclusively in Japan. Even just to train you're basically forced to live in a handful of Japanese cities.
NHK is an amazing channel if you got it. like 817 on comcast in the bay. but just the fact they dont have ads. and have so many great programs. If I need dead air background during the day its on NHK
* Railway Journey
* Cycle Japan
* Somewhere Street
* Lunch Expo
* Bento Express
* pythagoras switch (theres a new one thats like programing focused)
* I really miss Supreme Skills tho
Yes this is good but we used to have some great english speaking breakdowns of the events on youtube and they keep have to change the channel as they are taken down. A lot of the fun is to talk about the fights and who will win etc.
These visual novel "games" have more in common with books or films than games like BotW. They usually have an "autoplay" button. Visual novels are overwhelmingly dominated by Japanese companies so if you're gonna use who's dominant as a barometer of what's best for business... well the world is bigger than K-pop.
I have no idea if this person was doing anything illegitimate, just pointing out its not the same.
Is there any evidence that game streaming is an effective way to promote games? Game publishers often ask YouTubers, VTubers, and Twitch streamers to promote their games, but it is rare for these efforts to actually increase the popularity of a game. It is not that the games become more popular because they are streamed, but rather that the streamers are streaming popular games in order to attract viewers.
Do steamers make games popular, or do steamers go for popular games? Yes. Both.
And the sponsored time bought from variety steamers pretty much proves the effectiveness. It wouldn't continue happening if it wasn't worth it for the distributors. Since the links published during the stream are attributable to the source, they get a good signal that it pays off.
(+ Personal anecdote: I bought some games just because I saw them on Twitch)
Eh, if my memory serve me correctly among us only got popular after some streamers started playing it, same applies to a lot of smaller games. vampire survivor too, I think ?
I've read of at least one indie dev that got their break after a medium~big streamer with something like 500k followers. it gave them the spike to get themselves featured on front page on steam, and enable virtuous cycle.
There are a lot of games I only knew about it because I follow some streamers that plays games genre I like.
I don’t know other way to learn about new games if not by a streamer or promoted on steam home page, steam has an awful algorithm, so you wouldn’t be recommended a lot of new games, just the same games most of the time.
Anecdata: I've bought games after watching gameplay by streamers I like and respect.
For example, if you are borderline about investing in DCS (combat flightsim) and related gear, watching someone like Growling Sidewinder can tip you over. It hasn't convinced me yet because I don't wish to buy the required rig, but it might.
And I bought Il-2 after watching another channel's gameplay videos.
Sample size of 1 here but I only buy games that streamers or YouTubers I know enjoyed. When I was younger it was because I was constrained by money. Money isn’t a problem anymore but I’m constrained by time. So I trust the recommendations of people with tastes similar to mine.
Visual novel youtube uploads are definitely a thing. All of Umineko is available as just an auto-playthrough for those that want that. It's hard to argue it's not just outright piracy, even if you're not shipping around the bytes.
Would be nice to just get the videos pulled instead of outright arresting people. Maybe someone is wanting to make a point.
For reasons I do not understand, I find actually playing a visual novel more immersive than just seeing video of one. Visual novels may seem like a passive experience, but the tiny bit of interaction (literally just pressing a button to continue dialogue) makes a huge difference to me.
So yes, it's piracy, but it also isn't a perfect reproduction.
One might think that the fact that choices are flattened into a purely linear story would ruin the experience, but most choices are so vestigial that removing them is an improvement in my book.
I liked the first anime series, but (for me) the visual novel was incredibly tedious and boring. Did a refund of it on Steam about after 10-15 mins (from rough memory).
Theres no way I'd be able to put up with it for the whole duration.
The Steinsgate VN starts off very slow and stays very slow for quite some time. I also found it tedious. Fortunately there are hundreds (thousands) of other VNs to choose from.
It's unfortunate that VNs are both a medium and a genre. For reasons I don't quite understand, I adore the medium. Yet there are genre conventions that I dislike and that new readers generally can't tolerate.
SubaHibi is linear. It has the classic fake freedom: there is only one true ending and only one path to it. Any choices you make are either right or wrong, and the wrong ones are promptly punished.
(And, in my opinion, it's one of the worst things ever written.)
There are many equally valid "true" endings, not counting all the side endings. Sounds like it wasn't your cup of tea, that's fine. No VN is universally loved.
The quality of the story is a matter of opinion, but the linearity of the story is objective fact. Just look at the chart you posted: there is one linear story to follow, with just occasional branches to alternate endings or splits that immediately merge back together.
Most VNs are structured as routes. The reader does not choose how the story will unfold, but rather chooses one of several linear stories to follow. I would classify that as a fundamentally linear story. The fact that the route is chosen by a choice in the middle is not really different from choosing the route from a menu at the start. In fact, most people use guides to get on the desired route.
SubaHibi is even more linear than that, because the playing order of the routes is enforced. Each route is unlocked only after the previous one is completed. There is one "True" ending, which is required to be completed last. The mysteries are only fully resolved by reaching the True ending.
(I don't think the True ending actually adds anything. In fact, all the mysteries were resolved to my satisfaction less than halfway through the story. But that's a matter of opinion once again.)
So it's linear if you ignore the parts that aren't? Without a walkthrough and a some meta experience with VNs it's pretty easy to end up somewhere other than one of the four true endings and walk away satisfied.
Anyway we aren't going to agree here. I am interested in two things: what VNs you do like... and what VNs you would consider non-linear. The discussion can't really continue without a point of comparison.
I am sincerely curious what you consider a non-linear VN. Maybe I've been unconsciously avoiding them so my perspective here is too skewed. Do you perhaps mean VNs where you choose where to go each day, e.g. さよならを教えて～comment te dire adieu～?
Pretty much any game you can think of has a full playthrough on YouTube. I am not fully informed on this topic, but from a distance, this seems like a poor decision by the Japanese government. Why go after YouTubers when there is rampant piracy of all things anime? Easy targets?
Watching a full play through of a visual novel recreates most of the experience of playing the visual novel. Watching someone play Madden 2023, less so.
From the article, though:
>In a statement following his arrest, CODA, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Promotion Organization, asserted that, “in principle,” any use of gameplay videos requires permission from the rights holder.
I agree this is a poor decision, and it's draconian, and I'm against it.
That said, a visual novel has little to no gameplay. "Watching it" is all there is to it (minor minigames may be present in some games in this genre, but barely and often not at all). So streaming a full video of its gameplay is as close as it gets to giving the game for free. This is almost like streaming a full episode of an animé to which you don't have the rights.
Again, I don't agree with arresting anyone for this, just providing context.
Watching the video is entirely different than playing the game, in my own experience as a gamer. If you’re not in control then you’re not playing. It’s not the same thing. Watching someone else play is always different from playing for yourself.
There's very little to control -- nothing, in many visual novels -- so "watching" is the same as "playing". These are like animé, only you click "next" to read/watch the next scene. You don't "play" a visual novel in any meaningful sense.
Some have minor decisions to make, some none at all.
I'm not a fan of the genre, but that's neither here nor there.
They're e-books, not games. I think calling them games is a mistake since it causes people to say things like "they're not a fan of the genre", which is a weird thing to say about the concept of books.
Japan calls them a variety of different things. Sometimes they're called "adventure games", like Monkey Island or Phoenix Wright, or "kinetic novel" or "sound novel". They don't actually use the term "visual novel" though. (complicating this a bit, it's common in Japanese game marketing to make up a new genre for every game series instead of just saying it's "an FPS" or whatever.)
They are sold in gaming sites, so it's easy to see where the confusion may arise.
> [...] it causes people to say things like "they're not a fan of the genre", which is a weird thing to say about the concept of books.
I'm not a fan of the genre because it tends to be terrible. Way more uncomfortable than reading a book (staring at a computer screen), the requirement to press "next" or choose between trivial dialogue choices is tiring, and the writing is uniformly terrible.
So in principle I wouldn't have anything against the genre, except in practice it's terrible.
There is a genre of videogames that is way better than visual novels and requires lots of reading, but also has real and often innovative gameplay: interactive fiction (the evolution of text adventures of old, Infocom et al).
> I'm not a fan of the genre because it tends to be terrible.
Whoa, that's harsh. I suspect that has to do more with translation quality than the writing quality. Getting translation right is difficult, if not impossible. But people tend to underestimate that. Additionally, dialogue choices in visual novels are far from trivial. They often represent major turning points in the story.
Though visual novels aren't quite mainstream even in Japan, they were quite popular. If the writing was uniformly terrible, it wouldn't have sold as much.
I can get past awful translations, and actually have for other art forms. I'm confident that this isn't the problem for visual novels, but that they are actually amateurish stories, neither books nor movies (nor games).
It's ok that other people like them though, I'm not the Good Taste Police.
> Though visual novels aren't quite mainstream even in Japan, they were quite popular. If the writing was uniformly terrible, it wouldn't have sold as much.
I'm sure you can find the flaw in "lots of people like this therefore it cannot be uniformly terrible". There are plenty of examples of this phenomenon.
In Spanish we have a saying: "eat poop, millions of flies cannot be wrong!".
I agree the usual 2-3 line UI for them makes them take forever to get through. I suspect this has to do with Japanese people being famously underemployed throughout the 2000s, so they had lots of free time.
Some of them like When they Cry or Planetarian have full-screen text - those are the ones Japan actually calls "novel games". Those are usually more worth reading.
Which visual nivel is highly branchy? I've no patience for them so I've only seen a few, and they were almost like reading a (bad) book. Fans of the genre in forums seem to be against too much "gameplay", too.
That question is like asking a film lover, "what film is over two hours"? The answer is "lots of them". Branching isn't considered gameplay. And of course fans are against gameplay, the genre is defined by the lack of it. Once it has enough gameplay it's not a visual novel anymore, it's a regular game.
> That question is like asking a film lover, "what film is over two hours"? The answer is "lots of them"
Well, the problem in this case is that the answer isn't "lots of them" but "very few of them". And those that have options, based on reviews I've seen, are mostly cosmetic, the story is "on rails".
Being "on rails" defines the genre, I'd say. That, and terrible writing.
The majority of visual novels have branching paths after a common route that lead to entirely different endings.
I think perhaps you shouldn't speak with such authority on the medium. Many have terrible writing, many have excellent writing. It depends on the author(s) and also to an extent on the localization team if it's being read in English or another language.
> I think perhaps you shouldn't speak with such authority on the medium
What "authority"? I'm giving my opinion; this started with the comment "I'm not a fan of the genre". I don't claim to be an authority.
All of the visual novels I've played were terrible and their plots would have been rightfully mocked had they been books. They also had little to no branching and lacked any meaningful decisions. Note I played many that were highly regarded in websites such as Home of the Underdogs, whose owner was a fan of the genre.
That's just my experience (based on playing games since the Commodore 64). I base my opinions on my experience. I don't push them on you. It entitles me to say I'm no fan of the genre -- no more, no less.
Yes, at least relative to the visual novels I've pl-- seen-- um, experienced?
I wonder why I seem to have struck such a nerve for multiple users here on HN just because I said I wasn't a fan of a genre. I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!
Nah, the line isn't so clear. The Visual Novel Database has run into this problem categorizing "borderline" games which have significant dialogue in addition to significant gameplay.
There are choices which set flags, decide character routes, and determine a multitude of endings.
Typically a full playthrough will try to get all endings, but won't get all of the subchoices that just affect flavour. https://vndb.org/v11/lengthvotes
>this seems like a poor decision by the Japanese government.
Granted the article linked doesn't explain anything: The Japanese government, specifically the courts and law enforcement, are simply exercising demands made by Kadokawa concerning copyright infringement.
well umineko is a bit of special case, as ryukishi07 was genuinely happy that people fan translated his games to English, credited TL team in the VN itself - by creating an organization with the same name as theirs - and sent them a letter in recognition of their efforts, and he didn't care about piracy aspect at all.
Was thinking the same, but wonder if an arrest in Japan is somehow different to an arrest in US for instance, and hence not quite as excessive as it immediately sounds.
Japan has a nearly 99% conviction rate, which tells you a lot about their justice process. It is not good to be arrested in Japan, even when you are innocent. You can be held for long periods without trial as well, essentially serving time with no certainty that you were actually in the wrong.
This. Also doesn't help that many ordinary Japanese think that getting arrested basically equals they're guilty. So much for due process.
That said, the 99% conviction rate is a bit misleading in that the prosecution rate is pretty low (as low as 10%?). Seems as the prosecutors are picking and choosing slam dunk cases than sending cases through the courts to avoid not guilty verdicts.
Criminaloty of copyright is a tragic mistake a4ound the worls- it should be handled like patents -the accusor should file charges in civil court and demand compensation
The way things are, my tax dollars are being used to protect profits of companies that often themselves pay no tax.
Argument for discussion: with the advent of large language models, copyright is not only untenable, it's a literal threat to the progress of civilization.
If you take that point of view, I hope you also apply it to everything and not just some segment that is convenient. It means for example, that no music creator, no software company, no movie maker, etc. has any copyright. I would be OK with that, but only if that was universally applying, and not just for things that can be laundered by some actually existing AI.
is making bigger and better neural networks really the same as progressing civilisation? I think Hacker News is one of the few places where the majority would say yes
I would say stripping artists of their rights is the opposite of progress
If AI powered tools are able to provide a lot of value (they probably will), and they require lots of data (they probably will), then it's a conversation worth having.
Though artists are often very leftist and/or liberal they tend to be extremely conservative about intellectual property rights because their livelihood depends on it. This is fair enough, but unfortunately even outside of AI, intellectual property law is already overzealous. We probably need alternate funding models or something.
Theft providing value doesn't excuse theft. These giant companies can absolutely afford to properly license their datasets, and if they don't want to license them, they can create them.
Mozilla has been creating an open dataset for text-to-speech/speech-to-text for years now with thousands of contributors, why can't Google do the same?
I don't know about that. One of the biggest problems IMO with most theft is that is is net value negative. Someone steals my $500 cell phone and fences it for $100. The fence resells it for $250 to some poor sap who can't use it because it is IMSI banned. Value is destroyed.
This is why many consider it okay for a starving man to steal bread to eat. His value (not starving) is greater than the cost to the baker (1 loaf of bread).
If you disallow “theft” (copying is not theft, let alone training), then as you said, only giant companies can afford to train datasets by licensing or creating data (e.g. Adobe, Getty, Disney).
These statements always ignore that libre AI models exist, and rely on the weakening of copyright laws to let small creators use AI and compete against corporations that will use AI regardless, because once again, they have the resources to license giant datasets and we don’t.
I agree. Perhaps there's a productive way to leverage this to publicly (or privately) support and fund artists, authors, and others who are critical to properly training our finest computer programs.
That is a post state and capital world. You're talking about good ol property rights and police backed enforcement of them.
There's no logical persuasion or voting blue our way into taking the edge of copyright from those with the most gained from it. This is a tougher fight than that...
Intellectual property rights are fundamentally not "good ol' property rights". Property rights exist because when you steal someone's car, you're depriving them of the usage of that car. If you steal the words from somebody's book, you're not preventing them from still reading it. In fact enforcement of intellectual property laws actually violates traditional property rights, as it interferes with people using their hardware property freely.
> Property rights exist because when you steal someone’s car, you’re depriving them of the usage of that car.
No, property rights exist because of a social value judgement that their existence is a net benefit. The particular structure of some aspects enforcing property rights in one class of property (tangible personal property) reflect that. (Mostly, in the Anglo-American system, this is addressed by the theft and conversion crimes and torts.) But the other main class of tangible property (real property) doesn’t really have the same nature, nor do most other elements of the broad class of intangible personal property, and the primary means of enforcing them against encroachment tend to be oriented around trespass (in common law terms, though there are special terms for it for some specific subtypes of property, such as as “infringement” for most IP rights) rather than theft/conversion, which also applies to tangible personal property (trespass to chattels).
Property rights exist due to the laws of physics allowing them to be enforced. If you physically possess a car, you can use it, and if someone steals it, the police can go physically take it away from them and return it to you.
You can't meaningfully enforce intellectual property rights in the general case. If someone learns the secret KFC recipe, you can't take it away from them.
both are decisions to honor/build a society around and the police will defend both. it’s historically and today continues to be their essential purpose
the property i'm talking about is more specifically 'means of production' type property, not someone's left shoe
Visual novel streaming is generally prohibited by publishers. In particular, MAGES. or 5pb., the company that sells Steins;Gate, is very strict. The main reason why there was an arrest in the recent streaming case is probably because MAGES. was involved. MAGES. was previously a subsidiary of Kadokawa, but is now a subsidiary of Colopl.
MAGES. is also not even the only Japanese company to go bankrupt because the CEO decided to spend the money on producing a J-pop idol group instead of releasing products.
Also, Steins;Gate, which does not contain sexual content, was briefly banned on Steam because Valve is run by the kind of people who think everything from Japan is child porn. (And then the only product they've ever unbanned from people complaining about this.) This is /after/ they changed policies to supposedly allow absolutely anything on the store, which is why it's full of trashy 3D rendered porn now; turns out "anything" means "anything Western".
Microsoft could DMCA a let's play of one of their games, but Western publishers generally don't care about like Japanese publishers do, so they don't bother.
But the US also has fair use and Japan doesn't, so it'd be easier to fight. Instead, Japanese publishers who do want to encourage streaming put up rules promising not to take you down as long as you don't show X content, or especially lenient IPs like Touhou will have copyright grants for fanart, and you can't do anything outside of that in public.
I guess it is quite opposite to what I know, doujins (fanfics) of anime characters are very popular in Japan. On the other hand, don’t think anybody is dare to sell fanfics of Disney characters.
You mostly see illegal pirated copies of those. There are series no one will touch (Nintendo or Doraemon), and series that people will sell at real life events but won't upload anywhere permanent or allow resale (mostly if it involves actual people, like bands or movies).
The series where they're open about it commercially like Touhou/Vocaloid have explicit rules for what's ok and what isn't though.
> "Steins;Gate" is a visual novel, and as the name implies, the gameplay consists primarily of reading, with few prompts or inputs required by the player. With the intended appeal being much more watching the narrative unfold than directly controlling the onscreen action, visual novels are, comparatively, closer than other games to a book or movie
In contrast, even a campaign in AOE2 requires a lot of actions to go anywhere.
> In a statement following his arrest, CODA, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Promotion Organization, asserted that, “in principle,” any use of gameplay videos requires permission from the rights holder.
The legal situation might be different in other countries.
What law was he actually charged with breaking? I didn't see this mentioned in the article and it seems like this would be relevant information to include.
Anyways based on the available details, I'm surprised the police were even involved in what should really be a civil case between the rights holder and the YouTuber. I don't know if the Japanese public is safer or better off after this arrest.
The game mentioned, STEINS;GATE: My Darling's Embrace, has following description on Steam:
> Fall in love with the lab members all over again in this sweet and slapstick romantic comedy!
Plus the impression that I got from their promotional video on Steam, I wanted to ask... Is this a porn or a semi-porn game? Because if so, then it makes sense for the creator/publisher to restrict the exposure of their game based on both the legal grounds and commercial interests.
No, there's no pornography whatsoever in the Steins;Gate franchise, and it's one of the biggest visual novels out there, as well as a very popular anime (adapted from the VN), it's not some unknown IP. VN Database: https://vndb.org/v6618
For comparison, the Fate series did start with pornography and is easily one of the most popular franchises in and outside of Japan. I'm sure you've heard of Fate/Grand Order which is one of the most profitable mobile games out there.
For reference, a lot of popular anime series and manga started as pornography. Manga, anime, light/web novels, visual novels and games have a symbiotic relationship in Japan, so they get adapted from one to the others quite frequently.
As to why they do this, well, it's Japan. The average age is 48, and the average CEO is 60+. They don't really have the concept of fair use like in the US. IF you want a perfect example of how detached they are from the internet, you can just look at Nintendo who to this day still goes hard after Youtubers who just cover their games. They're extremely protective of their IPs, especially when it comes to foreigners or people in Japan whom they have no professional relationship with.
> you can just look at Nintendo who to this day still goes hard after Youtubers who just cover their games
> They're extremely protective of their IPs, especially when it comes to foreigners or people in Japan whom they have no professional relationship with.
If that's the case. What are all of these gameplay videos of their most recent release doing on youtube (all of them uploaded by foreigners afaict)?
I recommend you just google "Nintendo Youtubers" and you'll see just how far Nintendo will go after people. For reference, they used to (pulled the plug in 2018-2019) have a program on Youtube that was exclusive to them, where they'd go after your monetization if you made a video covering one of their IP, and they would claim everything, and you'd essentially have to sign a contract MCN style (google Nintendo Creators Program) with them to be able to cover their games and get a fraction of the earnings.
They aren't as bad as they used to be a few years ago, but that doesn't mean that they're ok either. Youtubers to this day still complain about Nintendo being out of touch all the time, where they actively go after people who are just fans of their IPs.
They aren't alone in this, just one example of many, such as the anime youtubers community (anitube), etc...
> Fate series did start with pornography and is easily one of the most popular franchises in and outside of Japan
Popular titles like the "Fate/stay night" don't include much sexual material though. Labeling these as porn is like saying GoT is porn, and I suspect many people would object to that.
Not sure how you can claim that. There's at least 60+ hardcore CG in Fate/Stay Night with fully visible penetration and oral, then you have Fate/Hollow Ataraxia with well over 120 CG (CG = Individual images).
Imgur image (SFW) with a bunch of the sexual tags included in the games, since I'm not sure I can use that kind of language here: https://i.imgur.com/oXjnk13.png
They did eventually move away from pornography as the franchise got popular enough via the initial cult following. This isn't at all uncommon with visual novels, starting with pornographic content and moving away as adaptations to anime and manga are made and it reaches the mainstream.
Because "Fate/stay night" is in Apple's App Store with most of the story intact. Yes, the original version did include pornographic content. But so many people are willing to play it without them.
That's an all-ages version, which is extremely common. You can go on Steam and a lot of the visual novels there are the all-ages versions, because they just sell better in some cases, and primarily because Steam is iffy on including adult content when most visual novels focus on students, which is the case for FATE for example.
Plus, it just re-affirms what I said:
> They did eventually move away from pornography as the franchise got popular enough via the initial cult following. This isn't at all uncommon with visual novels, starting with pornographic content and moving away as adaptations to anime and manga are made and it reaches the mainstream.
Tsukihime, also from Type-Moon (developers of FATE), has recently gotten a remake which stripped away all the adult content (with no +18 patches of any sort).
For reference. Most of the top visual novels on VNDB (Visual Novel Database, the biggest information depository for the VN community) have adult content, but most aren't "NUKIGE", which is when the game primarily focuses on adult content over the plot. You can however, safely remove the adult content from most non-nukige visual novels without breaking the story beats.
Japan’s “justice” system is based on something outlawed in England nigh on 800 years ago under Magna Carta (remedied as habeus corpus). It’s basically legalised kidnapping by the police where they hold you hostage to yourself until you admit the charges against you. You may be held indefinitely, if the court so wishes.
Thus, his confession should be seen with scepticism as to its truth.