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What Lawyers Can Learn From Manga
jedigeek links to this article from Lawrence Lessig, writing "This article explains the interesting phenomenon of dojinshi, and why dojinshi helps fuel the production of original manga. From a western-perspective, dojinshi breaks copyright laws, but, according to the article's author: 'The law is a rough-edged tool. It was not crafted by geniuses of economics.' In a time when laws like the DMCA exist and are being exploited, this is certainly food for thought."
Doujinshi is fan drawn and developed. This is not a new phenomenon as copying original work has always been viewed as flattery in Japan. It is our application of Western laws and thinking that sparks the copyright debate.
I am me...I think
The fact of it is, of course, that buissness violates laws for profit all the time. When the consequence of a violation is a fine, it just becomes another risk analysis to make.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Title: "How to Draw Manga"
Author: "A Society For The Study Of Manga Techniques"
#PP: 116
ISBN# 4-88996-042-2
Published 1999, subtitle "Compiling Characters"
It goes in depth into design and shaping of characters.. including that manga SMILE, and the eyes, and (apparent lack of) nose, as well as shading techniques, and how to use pen, ink, pencil, tone sheets, and other items to make your manga look "real".
Also covers lettering, position of word bubbles and position of characters to convey action, emotion, etc.
It also goes to explain how the Hero is always one head taller than the Villain, who is 1/2 to 1 head taller than the lead female, and the comic relief is almost *ALWAYS* 3 heads tall, with his own head being 1/3 of that three.
It kind of goes into the un-written dynamic of characters that we all noticed when watching StarBlazers for the first time, but didnt realize WHY we were noticing.
As for price, I have no idea. It was an Xmas gift from my Mom several years ago.
oh.. and it has manga-boobies, too!
maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
What the lawyer won't tell them, because he has no way of knowing, is how much good can come to the company by allowing Person 1 to continue uninterrupted, or perhaps even with the encuragement of the company.
It's the lawyer's duty to warn the company of what can go wrong legally, but somebody should call marketing and PR to to find out what can go wrong if they do go forward with the lawsuits.
Sometimes, the business benefits more from Person 1's actions are so much greater that the risk of Person 2 should be accepted, and dealt with when Person 2 comes forward.
Written Japanese is overcomplicated by the use of kanji.
Japanese, like any other language, is almost exactly as complex as it needs to be - several thousand years of linguistic development tends to remove the bloat.
of course, why the Japanese don't drop the kanji and use kana exclusively is beyond me -- it seems that it would make all sorts of things easier
It only seems easier to you that way because you read things like manga where kanji is not necessarily vital. If you read a Japanese novel, you'd see why kanji are required - reading with kanji is about ten times faster than pure kana.