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Progress against the law: Anime and fandom, with the key to the globalization of culture

Sean LeonardView all authors and affiliations
Volume 8, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877905055679

Abstract

The medium of Japanese animation is a powerhouse in the world of alternative entertainment. Proselytization by fans ignited the anime movement in America, despite Japanese copyright holders’ abandonment of the American market. This historical and cultural analysis demonstrates that fans’ continual infringement of copyright between 1976 and 1993 spurred the progress of commerce and the arts. Introducing the concept of cultural sinks, this analysis explains these phenomena in terms of demand formation, the role of commons and the causational links between the fans, artists, rights holders and markets that characterize the globalization of culture.

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1.
1 Since 1998, most fansubbers have adopted the practice of ‘digisubbing’, or releasing their fansubs as encoded video files for internet distribution. While digisubbing deserves its own analysis, the key features of the fansubbing removement remain present in this modern distribution form.
2.
2 Unlike the South Asian desis, American fans would purchase or rent these tapes, copy them and circulate them in the anime fan community.
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3 Pseudonym.
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4 Pseudonym.
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5 The earliest known fansubbed video was a 1986 copy of Lupin III.
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6 I have not mentioned the names of the members out of respect for their wishes, as stated in their correspondences. The translator had a Korean surname, the English compositor had a Japanese surname and the subtitler had an Hispanic surname.
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7 Pseudonym.
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8 Pseudonym.
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9 For example, the influence of the Hans Christian Andersen-inspired Soviet animation Snezhnaya Koroleva (The Snow Queen, 1957) on Hayao Miyazaki’s cinema.
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10 In another article, targeted at a legal audience, I consider the implications of fan distribution and proselytization commons for copyright. Briefly, copyright is meant to stimulate or reward creativity or dissemination (in some combination thereof) according to differing schools of legal thought. However, anime’s international development suggests that there exist clearly definable times when copyright has the exact opposite effects. The article considers whether fans infringed US and Japanese copyright laws and posits a new legal doctrine that may reconcile the interests of copyright holders and participatory audiences (Leonard, 2005).

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