The closure of the free anime and manga pages Kissanime and Kissmanga put the entire otaku community on alert due to the connotations that such events had. And those fears have come true. It has been about a year since Japan announced that it would strengthen its copyright laws, which it has recently implemented. If any user downloads anime or manga illegally, he could be jailed for two years and pay a fine of almost $ 20,000. Of course, this only applies to Japanese citizens in the same country.
Although the aforementioned pages were closed for other reasons (they were outside of Japanese jurisdiction), many otaku are uneasy about the repercussions of Japan’s enforcement of copyright law. Especially since it is not known for sure what place anime occupies in this situation. In the anime’s country of origin, the consequences are clear, but outside it it is not yet known what actions the owners of various series will take against those who illegally broadcast the anime.
Another relevant event is the suspension of several Twitter accounts of users who had images or videos of Dragon Ball and One Piece. Among those affected were several independent artists who demonstrated their skill and affection for these series through their illustrations.
My twitter account was locked once
— ふぇにょん (@fenyo_n) January 8, 2021
I went back because I checked the copyright policy
I don't know when it will be erased.
If it is erased, it will not be revived.
Bye bye minna...🥲
One of the responses to this message came from another artist who was censored for a drawing he had made showing Beerus and Vegito fighting.
I had my Vegito Vs Beerus fan manga removed by them as well pic.twitter.com/Ffq4DpDH32
— Red Dog (@RedDogJustice) January 8, 2021
A user published in his account the impressive number of copyright claims that other accounts had received and their consequent penalty indicating which object had been the cause (drawing or video related to One Piece or Dragon Ball).
So not sure if you've heard, but someone at Shueisha has decided to copyright strike and threaten a massive amount of Twitter accounts for just sharing images related to One Piece as a franchise. They even copyright striked my own profile picture. Are we joking?? pic.twitter.com/C3BA2JwIHI
— Artur - Library of Ohara (@newworldartur) January 8, 2021
However, a rumor began to circulate on social media that this was not an attack by the Shueshia publishing house based on copyright law. According to the message from On Takahashi, chief executive of Irodori Comics, which he published responding to one of the concerns of another user, copyright law does not affect ‘fan art’ works.
Takahashi clarified that as long as you do not upload an entire chapter of a manga to a page there would be no problems. Nor was it forbidden to use an official image to make ‘gifs’ or memes.
The thread of the conversation continues, revealing that Khara (the studio that owns Evangelion) will censor all illegal commercial use of its franchise, and that the Evangelion user manual was not very clear on this. Takahashi adds that the apocalypse on Twitter could be the result of an aggressive move made by an involved third party who would be acting on behalf of Shueshia, but without clearly knowing how to use the artificial intelligence responsible for vetoing those who are really violating the law of Copyright.
Social Media Author: [RonLaoHu]
