Ask John: Why do Otaku Lack Respect for Intellectual Property?

Question:
I’d like to know one thing about the more obsessive fans (henceforth referred to as otaku). One thing that pisses me off about otaku is their lack of respect for intellectual property, i.e. their involvement in the illegal trade of pirated CDs, VCDs, and DVDs from Hong Kong and the downloading of anime via BitTorrent. Now why do they do this if they love the medium?

Answer:
If we’re going to discuss respect for intellectual property rights among obsessive fans, it’s absolutely necessary to expand the subject beyond just anime fans. Anime fans are not isolated in the realm of copyright infringement, and isolating them in discussion is not only unfair, but also fatally flawed observation. I believe that there are numerous reasons that contribute to the anime fan community’s tendency to ignore copyrights, including the proliferation of the original material, its distribution method, and its availability, but the behavior of ignoring copyrights is not limited to just anime fans.

Video and audio piracy are a worldwide phenomenon. Hollywood looses billions annually because illegal copies of movies and television shows are distributed internationally without legal authorization. Billions of people have downloaded music from the internet without legal authorization. The internet is composed primarily of images used without prior consent from their creators or owners. 2004 estimates placed file transfers via BitTorrent at anywhere from a third to more than half of all internet traffic. Anyone that has ever briefly perused the content commonly distributed via BitTorrent knows that the overwhelming majority of all content shared through BitTorrent, other file-sharing methods, and by extension, the internet itself, is copyrighted material. Anime fans are not unusual or exceptional in their execution of theft and unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material.

Unauthorized use and distribution of trademarks and copyrighted material is, I think, an inevitable byproduct of modern communication. Commercial distribution of media including advertising, television broadcast, radio, and print is intentionally designed to put intellectual properties into the public eye. Humans are constantly assailed by copyrighted visual and audio content. Copyrighted ideas are so commonplace that in many cases they’ve been adopted as public domain. For example, despite the fact that English speakers think of “band-aid” as a common noun and “xerox” as a commonplace verb, these terms are actually trademarked names. The circulation of commercial images, sounds, and ideas is so commonplace, so instinctive to modern man, that sharing licensed content seems somewhat natural. There’s a certain difficultly in reconciling the idea that we may watch a program on television for free, or hear a song on the radio for free, but we may not legally pass along that television program or song under any circumstance. The commercial intellectual property industry is itself responsible for creating the atmosphere of tolerance for public distribution. By distributing content for free, the media industry unintentionally but unavoidably encourages free distribution.

The method by which licensed content is distributed also contributes to the public tolerance for sharing. Rational people understand that picking up a material good from a store shelf and carrying it off without paying for it is theft. Likewise eating at a restaurant and not paying the bill, or refusing to pay for a service is theft. Human beings respect value in something physical and tangible. We pay for something which we physically hold or consume; we pay for another person’s effort which we personally witness. But intangible commodities don’t carry the same weight. Intellectually we may know that an idea has value the same way that a hamburger or DVD does; but practically humans don’t think of the content on a DVD as having a value equivalent to the physical product of a DVD. Especially in the case of anime and fansubbing, anime fans instinctively don’t think of a broadcast or a digital signal as being a physical product, even though it is. Fans that share anime episodes, songs, books, computer programs, images, or any other type of digital content do so precisely because the content is digital; it’s intangible and therefore akin to elements like air and speech that we naturally think of as communal and naturally free.

Anime fans, in particular, also distribute anime often because there are no practical legal alternatives. A foreigner that wishes to watch the latest episode of a new Japanese TV anime has no legal means to do so. Even importing Japanese DVDs is not a foolproof solution since actually watching them requires ignoring the American law prohibiting circumvention of distribution limitations. The love for anime that anime fans have is a double-sided dilemma. Fans love and respect anime, but they also love watching anime. Respecting anime sometimes requires contradicting the desire to watch anime. Fans may eagerly wish to watch and enjoy current anime, but doing so requires obtaining access to it illegally. Strictly respecting anime copyrights means consciously refusing to watch many anime shows, which opposes the feeling of loving anime.

Anime fans aren’t the only people that ignore respect for intellectual property rights; they’re simply more organized and conscious of their actions, and the impact of their actions, than average people. I think that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content is a natural and inevitable result of contemporary communication methods. I’m not condoning theft of intellectual property, simply saying that it happens and will continue to happen. Unauthorized distribution of media has been enabled by technology, and the groundwork for unauthorized distribution was established by the commercial content distribution industry itself. In fact, sharing of stories created by others has occurred for as long as language itself has existed. But unlike average consumers that may unknowingly participate in content piracy, and consciously malicious pirates that commercially bootleg products for profit, at least the anime community consciously tries to avoid intentionally ruining the anime industry. In fact, Japanese doujinshi creators that disregard intellectual property rights sometimes become respected, contributing members of the professional manga and anime industry. And foreign fans that consume illegally distributed copies and translations are also the primary consumer market that supports the anime industry, and foreign viewers that disregard intellectual property rights contribute to the success and popularity of anime internationally. I think that disregard for intellectual property rights is not a simple black & white issue of legal and illegal, moral and immoral. And the dubiousness of ignoring copyright laws is especially relevant to the international anime community.