By the west I guess you're excepting America. The US publishing, record, and film industry were ALL built on piracy. Hell, Samuel Clements was the biggest reason the US ended up honouring international copyright, as he was the first US author to be popular overseas.
I also live in Japan and also have personal experience with the laws - including the fact I had to do some training as part of my companies P-Mark certification. Not only was it specifically mentioned on the course that the Japanese laws were derived from EU/UK laws but I recognised it from university. Actually, the computer industry in Japan has derived a LOT of best practises from UK law and standards- they follow those over the US equivalent.
That law was actually passed for a nominally sensible reason, in that a lot of the older electronics had dodgier power supplies, coupled with the fact that the wiring in Japan tends not to be great (there are 3 seperate line-breakers on the circuit-box in my flat, but everything seems to be on one circuit. And it's VERY easy to overload it...) meant that the banning old electronics (everything made before 2001, not everything made more than x years ago - it wasn't a rolling ban) seemed to be a health-and-safety issue. The law ended up pissing off enough different groups of people that it ended up having no practical effect though.
Apparently the original design was for an episodic series of games, which was cut back to a single game.
In addition, they apparently cut out a LOT of the plot very late on, as they felt the game was too slow. I'd love to get hold of, say, the ORIGINAL script for the game.
US is number 1, but No 2 is Japan and No 3 is EU or UK (depending on how you want to split the market) - and the US market isn't that much bigger than the other two. As an example, if MS take the US market with the 360, and Sony wins Europe and Japan with the PS3, Sony will be in a much better position.
The genesis also beat the SNES in Europe and is still massively popular in South America. The US games market is not the be-all and end-all - it's actually spent most of it's life out-of-step with what's been going on in the rest of the world.
Because it still snows there ALL THE TIME. I went to uni with a LOT of norwegians and one of them ended up practically having a breakdown (and ended up moving to Australia) after only one day of snow - anything to finally avoid it.
That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that the PS3 is going to be horrifically expensive in Japan and Europe. Unless you want to claim that Sony is ripping off those markets to make up for the money it's loosing in the US.
Nope - a consitution is the set of rules for running a society. The UK has one of those, but it's spread over a lot of material - there's common law and the Magna Carta to name two. There've been lots of modern additions such as adding the European Bill of Human Rights. The big difference between our constitution and the US constition is that parliament is soverign, not the constitution.
Actually Europe and Japan are both R2 - the only difference there is PAL vs NTSC (though I am told that UMD has a Japanese and European sub-region...)
As for Anime DVDs, when US DVDs come with a Japanese language track and are about 1/4 the price of those sold in Japan, well yes the Japanese companies are worried about reverse importing.
I'm not a lawyer, but:
You cannot patent software in the EU. That hasn't STOPPED the EU patent office granting them, just that they're not valid (but, I assume, they'd suddenly become valid if software patents were legalised.)
There are a few "software patents" granted because they were defined as a mechanical process and the software carries out the same process.
Windows has had a media player bundled since Windows 3.1 (it was added in the multimedia upgrade pack for Windows 3.0) - they've been worried about media support since AT LEAST the earliest demos of Apple Quicktime.
They were, however, famously late to the Internet revolution.
1/2 isn't bad, I guess.
You're an American aren't you. The Americans seem to consider themselves seperate from the whole of the rest of the world, so why is it a surprise that Britain - which has been at war with most of Europe for most of it's history, and has colonial connections with most of the world - would consider itself apart from it?
Slashdot Mirror
It's a list from Business 2.0. I'm afraid I'd have to put them on my top 10 list of "magazines that don't matter"...
By the west I guess you're excepting America. The US publishing, record, and film industry were ALL built on piracy. Hell, Samuel Clements was the biggest reason the US ended up honouring international copyright, as he was the first US author to be popular overseas.
I also live in Japan and also have personal experience with the laws - including the fact I had to do some training as part of my companies P-Mark certification. Not only was it specifically mentioned on the course that the Japanese laws were derived from EU/UK laws but I recognised it from university. Actually, the computer industry in Japan has derived a LOT of best practises from UK law and standards- they follow those over the US equivalent.
Y HELO THAR
That law was actually passed for a nominally sensible reason, in that a lot of the older electronics had dodgier power supplies, coupled with the fact that the wiring in Japan tends not to be great (there are 3 seperate line-breakers on the circuit-box in my flat, but everything seems to be on one circuit. And it's VERY easy to overload it...) meant that the banning old electronics (everything made before 2001, not everything made more than x years ago - it wasn't a rolling ban) seemed to be a health-and-safety issue. The law ended up pissing off enough different groups of people that it ended up having no practical effect though.
Apparently the original design was for an episodic series of games, which was cut back to a single game. In addition, they apparently cut out a LOT of the plot very late on, as they felt the game was too slow. I'd love to get hold of, say, the ORIGINAL script for the game.
US is number 1, but No 2 is Japan and No 3 is EU or UK (depending on how you want to split the market) - and the US market isn't that much bigger than the other two. As an example, if MS take the US market with the 360, and Sony wins Europe and Japan with the PS3, Sony will be in a much better position.
Weird that you pick up on Japan's laws, when they're based on EU - and specifically UK - law. Weaker in some ways, too.
The genesis also beat the SNES in Europe and is still massively popular in South America. The US games market is not the be-all and end-all - it's actually spent most of it's life out-of-step with what's been going on in the rest of the world.
You'd prefer if I compared him to Graham Taylor then?
Because it still snows there ALL THE TIME. I went to uni with a LOT of norwegians and one of them ended up practically having a breakdown (and ended up moving to Australia) after only one day of snow - anything to finally avoid it.
To be fair, they were helped in beating Japan by the sheer uselessness of Zico as a coach. He makes Glen Hoddle look good...
Because this time around, Sony is ripping off the Americans too.
That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that the PS3 is going to be horrifically expensive in Japan and Europe. Unless you want to claim that Sony is ripping off those markets to make up for the money it's loosing in the US.
Nope - a consitution is the set of rules for running a society. The UK has one of those, but it's spread over a lot of material - there's common law and the Magna Carta to name two. There've been lots of modern additions such as adding the European Bill of Human Rights. The big difference between our constitution and the US constition is that parliament is soverign, not the constitution.
No, they are interested in terrorising people, that's why they're called terrorists not killorists.
Oh, but it does. It's just not codified in one document.
Yes, and our biggest selling newspaper has topless pictures EVERY day.
Actually Europe and Japan are both R2 - the only difference there is PAL vs NTSC (though I am told that UMD has a Japanese and European sub-region...) As for Anime DVDs, when US DVDs come with a Japanese language track and are about 1/4 the price of those sold in Japan, well yes the Japanese companies are worried about reverse importing.
I'm not a lawyer, but: You cannot patent software in the EU. That hasn't STOPPED the EU patent office granting them, just that they're not valid (but, I assume, they'd suddenly become valid if software patents were legalised.) There are a few "software patents" granted because they were defined as a mechanical process and the software carries out the same process.
Windows has had a media player bundled since Windows 3.1 (it was added in the multimedia upgrade pack for Windows 3.0) - they've been worried about media support since AT LEAST the earliest demos of Apple Quicktime. They were, however, famously late to the Internet revolution. 1/2 isn't bad, I guess.
You're an American aren't you. The Americans seem to consider themselves seperate from the whole of the rest of the world, so why is it a surprise that Britain - which has been at war with most of Europe for most of it's history, and has colonial connections with most of the world - would consider itself apart from it?
Had achived - it's dead now and they've totally failed to make any inroads into the Japanese MP3 player market.
If you only release one or two games a year in Europe you have PLENTY of time for localisation...
No they don't - it's a normal workday.