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Free entertainment

The legal and political dispute which has been raging for the last few years around author's rights and copyrights was mainly sparked by the way media have been handled by the entertainment industry: apart from computer games and hacked software it is music and movies which populate the respective file sharing networks. Beside pornography and current movies galore, UK and American TV series can also often be downloaded immediately after they have been broadcast. The same applies to documentaries, high quality audio books and classical music.

Even children are now caught in the crossfire between digital rights management (DRM) and free licences after the film and music industry targeted children with their "Captain Copyright" image campaign. The campaign has now been recalled - what's left are two free children's books which can be downloaded: the anti-DRM children's book called "The Pig And The Box" and the picture book about patent abuse called "The Crow Who Could Fly", available in several languages.

Of course one can easily criticise politicians and media providers for their lack of creativity and the sluggish pace at which material for the digital world has become available. Instead of, for example, introducing a single media contribution across the EU which would allow citizens of every country to access public media contents in other countries, current original language series by the BBC, for example, can presently only be viewed in certain legal grey areas.

Two or three years ago, things began to move, with, for example, the BBC offering downloads of current series and music for remixing - although only to a UK IP address - or with Arte's range of online programmes. For this purpose, the BBC developed a proprietary video codec (Dirac), published it under GPL, Mozilla licence and LGPL, and guaranteed its irrevocably free use despite the fact that there are several patents involved. Optimists also interpret Apple's DRM-free music deal for iTunes with EMI as a sign that resistance in the media industry is weakening.

File sharing as an opportunity

Japan's alternative approach with its Anime series shows that it's possible to operate without using legal threats: while the series hasn't been licensed internationally, its distribution - especially if it contains "fan subbing", home-made subtitles by fan groups - is tolerated. This way, many original Japanese series equipped with lovingly created subtitles find their way out of Japan - which is very much in the interest of Japanese film studios.

An interesting point is that Japanese studios also tolerate pornographic representation of their film characters. Disney Studios, on the other hand, reacts most sharply to any kind of sexualisation of Disney characters, which are regarded as "trade marks". In the long run, Asia should be able to ensure the export of its media and image culture, which is already widely spread and keenly received in the world of design and imagery in the west.

The success of this political approach shows in small gestures such as the growing number of senior schools offering Japanese or Chinese instead of French and getting overrun by enthusiastic students and parents alike, or the increasing number of Anime and Manga shops in European cities. While Amazon may still refuse to sell DVDs internationally because of their region codes, a growing generation of internet-savvy teenagers is eager to assimilate and share many elements of Asian culture. If you consider this a little far-fetched, just remember the success of the Japanese car industry or that of Taiwanese and Korean micro electronics, and then consider the overall financial size of the entertainment market.

Print Version | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-746466
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