Copyright Control

Well, the honeymoon is over. Most of the Koda Kumi vids disappeared a while ago, but it seems like YouTube have gone hardcore on a lot of copyrighted material from Japan.

It’s interesting how the TV stations seem to view these postings of their material online as some kind of scourge that needs to be eradicated, when in fact, its nothing of the sort. This isn’t hindering interest in their TV programmes; if anything, it’s fostering it. Of course, there is a lot to be said for the fact that no-one is receiving any royalties off the back of YouTube, but it’s undeniable that the ease with which one can make things readily available to the world must have helped raise the profile of a great number of Japanese artists, Japanese comedians, and who knows who else.

After the “silent library sketch” started surfacing all over the internet, it wasn’t long before other videos featuring the Downtown comedy duo started cropping up on people’s blogs, with Masatoshi Hamada and Hitoshi Matsumoto actually mentioned by name. Now I’m not saying they’re ready to conquer the West, but a little bit of recognition from people outside Japan can hardly be a bad thing.

(You try asking any person outside the UK who Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer are.)

It would be nice to live in a world where big media companies weren’t so jittery about people having access to their products without their control over them. Especially when it comes to material that often isn’t available anywhere else.

Friday, October 20th, 2006 Japan, Japanese News Trackback URL for this entry