Joi, who is the chairman of Creative Commons now, is going to be the CEO of Creative Commons.
Lessig, who is the current CEO of CC will focus on Change Congress project, but stay on CC board.
日本語の翻訳はこちらです。
Creative Commons Announces New Leadership, New FundingSan Francisco, CA, USA -- April 1, 2008
Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that works to expand the body of creative work available to the public for legal sharing and use, today announced both a leadership evolution and a major new grant of $4 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support its activities. "Both pieces of news we are announcing today reflect Creative Commons' maturation from a startup into crucial infrastructure for creativity, education, and research in the digital age," said the organization's founder, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. Creative Commons celebrated its fifth anniversary last December.
Lessig has announced a shift of academic focus from copyright to political corruption. He recently launched Change Congress, a movement to increase transparency in the US government's legislative branch. In order to concentrate on this effort, Lessig is stepping down as CEO of Creative Commons. He will be replaced by entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and free culture advocate Joi Ito. Lessig will remain on the Creative Commons board.
"Although I have changed my focus, I'm still very much committed to Creative Commons and the Free Culture cause," Lessig said. "The work I intend to do with Change Congress is in many ways complementary to the work of Creative Commons. Both projects are about putting people in power and enabling them to build a better system. I could not be more pleased to hand off the leadership of Creative Commons to the extraordinarily passionate and qualified Joi Ito."
"Under Larry's management, Creative Commons has grown from an inspirational idea to an essential part of the technical, social, and legal landscape involving organizations and people in 80 countries," said Ito. "With it, the organization has grown in size and complexity, and I am excited to increase the level of my participation to help manage this amazing group of people. The Hewlett Foundation has been a major supporter of ours from the beginning and we could not be more grateful for their support going forward into the future."
Founding board member and Duke law professor James Boyle will become chair of the board, replacing Ito, who remains on the board. "Jamie has demonstrated his commitment to Creative Commons from its founding," said Lessig. "He led the formation of Science Commons and ccLearn, our divisions focused on scientific research and education respectively. There is no person better suited to lead the Creative Commons board."
Boyle is optimistic about Creative Commons' future. "If one looks at all the amazing material that has been placed under our licenses - from MIT's Open Courseware and the Public Library of Science to great music, from countless photographs and blogs to open textbooks - one realizes that, under Larry's leadership, the organization has actually helped build a global 'creative commons' in which millions of people around the world participate, either as creators or users. My job will be to use the skills of the remarkable people on our board - including a guy called Larry Lessig, who has promised me he isn't going away any time soon - to make sure that mission continues and expands."
The Hewlett Foundation grant consists of $2.5 million to provide general support to Creative Commons over five years and $1.5 million to support ccLearn, the division of Creative Commons that is focused on open educational resources. "The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been a strong supporter of openness and open educational resources in particular," said Catherine Casserly, the Director of the Open Educational Resources Initiative at Hewlett. "Creative Commons licenses are a critical part of the infrastructure of openness on which those efforts depend." The Hewlett grant was a vital part of a five-year funding plan which also saw promises of support from Omidyar Network, Google, Mozilla, Red Hat, and the Creative Commons board.
Creative Commons also announces two other senior staff changes. Diane Peters joins the organization as General Counsel. Peters arrives from the Mozilla Corporation, serves on the board of the Software Freedom Law Center, and was previously General Counsel for Open Source Development Labs and the Linux Foundation. She has extensive experience collaborating with and advising nonprofit organizations, development communities, and high-tech companies on a variety of matters.
Vice President and General Counsel Virginia Rutledge, who joined Creative Commons last year from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, will take on a new role as Vice President and Special Counsel. In her new role, Rutledge will focus on development and external relations, while continuing to lead special legal projects.
About Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach. Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain, Omidyar Network, the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public. For more information about Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org.
ContactEric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
eric (at) creativecommons (dot) org
Press Kit
I have written a post on Hatsune-Miku and Nico Nico Douga recently.
Today I would like to write my views on the cultural background of these cultures in Japan.
===================
Dojinshi and Comiket
===================
Dojinshi is self published books, which often are manga or novels,
and are majorly made by amateurs (although some professional artists publish Dojinshi as well).
There are 2 types of Dojinshi, original and parody.
Parodies include comics, novels, animes, games, celebritiess and idols, etc.
There are majorly 3 ways to buy Dojinshi
1) Dojinshi events (such as Comiket)
2) Online purchase
3) stores (though very limited)
1) Among the Dojinshi events, Comiket (which stands for Comic Market) is the largest one.
It is actually the world's largest comic convention, held twice a year in Tokyo.
Comicket has majorly parodies (especially anime parodies) and some original,
there are Dojinshi events such as Comitia which is original dojinshi only.
Quote from an article of Nikkei BP Consulting(JP)
Comiket official site has an English PDF document explaining what Comiket is.
-Circles participants are 71% women, audience participants are 57% women.
-Circles genre are manga 41% anime 9% games30%
-Other(music, celebrities, sports, history, novels, etc) 20%
===================
Original Dojinshi
===================
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the symposium of Media Art Festival
and was found the panel discussion of Ms. Yumiko Shirai extremely interesting.
Ms. Shirai is a professional illustrator, and all the mangas that she publishes are published as dojinshi
sold either at Dojinshi events such as Comiket or Comitia, or online.
She wrote a doujinshi manga called "Tenjinsai", which won the prize in the comic division of the festival.
"Tenjinsai" is a Science Fiction / Fantasy manga,
about future of Japan which is nuclear polluted by war, and there are bamboos that cleanses
the radioactives.
Q: Why do you publish in Dojinshi rather than commercial manga publications?
A: I used to write in commercial manga publication.
However mangas that are expected in commercial world needs to be "catchy" and has cute girls
as those mangas sell well. You are expected to draw those.
If I write in Dojinshi, I can create whatever I want to,
and people who'd be deeply involved in my works will buy and read my books.
Q: How did you come to create dojinshi?
A: When I was in highschool- like all other people does...
Although there are lots of people who don't make dojinshi at highschools,
but it is true that we had the same situation in our highschool too.
People loves mangas here in Japan... so they write illustrations and mangas on notebooks etc
and some of them start copying them and distribute them to their classmates (with like 10 yen copy fee)
and some starts printing their mangas using publishing factories,
and start attending Comikets as audience... then as circles... then even as staffs.
I think that even if Dojinshi or Comikets existed or not does not affect
people's energy and motivation to create parodies
- love and imagination for the characters will be there anyways.
But because Comikets exists, people can enjoy it as a place to make their work public.
Oh- also, people were already making MAD animes already 10 years ago too.
They had several video recorders and were creating MAD animes like this.
HaruhiGellion
Actually, all of the other panelists: Kenji Taketomi who won the prize,
and the 2 judges - were all writing Dojinshi in the past.
Mr. Taketomi was submitting his mangas to commercial publications
and when they were not accepted, he would publish them as dojinshi.
So if there wasn't dojinshi market, those mangas would not have had anywhere to make it to the public.
Dojinshi served an excellent role of motivating the amateur manga creators
to create, publish and make public and sell at dojinshi events.
Mr. Monkey Punch, one of the judges- had nowhere to publish his mangas 42 years ago
(2 years before he started the famous Lupin series), and decided to create dojinshi.
He created 50 copies and sent them for free to the commercial publications
and eventually became a professional manga writer.
Mr. Kotobuki Shiriagari, the other judge- was actually amazed that Mr. Monkey Punch
was distributing his dojinshi for free.
He was in comic club in highschool, so the club made a dojinshi and went to Comiket
but made too much (2000 copies) and tried to sell them for profit and had a hard time he says.
So I think it all comes down to being able to create what the creators want to create,
and the existence of a place where they can make their creation public.
Dojinshi and Comiket was the place for manga creators for a long time...
and now with the videos, it is YouTube and Nico Nico Douga etc that serves those needs.
There is this very popular and AMAZING anime in Nico Nico Douga, "the song of fish".
This was created by one student as the graduation project
this creator created the anime, music, lyrics, everything.
This is another graduation project called "Whale", and the creator is saying that
if Nico Nico did not exist, this anime would have never been made public.
=========================
incentives for the creators
=========================
I think there are majorly 5 kinds of desires for the creators:
1) Desire to create (want to create things they like, they want to create)
2) Desire to make public of their creation
3) Desire to be accepted, get comments and feedback
4) Desire to make their creation better, desire to be remixed by others
5) Desire for reward (monetary compensation, fame, etc)
Not everyone desires the same thing, but I think the major desire that people has is those 5 things.
Dojinshi and Comikets fulfill those 5 desires.
Hatsune-Miku and Nico Nico Douga fulfill 1-4 desires,
and there is a hot debate in Japan as to how 5) shall be realized
-an effort to make a scheme to pay the creators.
For example, a scheme to pay the creators who uploaded interesting videos to Nico Nico Douga.
I think there are people who would be willing to pay the creators if they had the method
- but the industry is still debating about the best way how to conpensate (monetize) CGM.
Recently there was a creator who made a 3D CG application, which enables people to create 3DCGs.
The application was amazingly great and people who created 3DCGs using that tool
started to claim that they want to pay the creator :)
But there is no way people can pay under the status quo- and a method to create that is needed,
probably not as an ad model, but as a way to pay the creators directly.
This discussion reminded me of Magnatune - an online music label.
If individuals wanted to listen to music via Magnatune, they can listen and
if the individual liked that artist/music, they can pay the amount they want to pay to download the album.
(B2B models - like using for movies etc - has a different page for that too)
It is interesting to see what makes people motivated, and what is the best way to reward the creators.
For some people, it is money. For others, it is not necessarily money that makes them motivated.
For example, previously mentioned Mr. Monkey Punch was distributing his dojinshi free of charge.
Getting a job as manga creater was his goal- not getting paid for the mangas he created.
Distribution was more important for him then
- until he actually gets paid by the manga publishing companies.
At an event called Tokyo Game Show, there were people who does costume plays (cosplayers).
It is interesting to see that these cosplayers don't demand money for shooting photos of them
- rather, they say "please take a nice photo of me!" "thank you for taking a photo of me!" :)
They're not doing this for the sake of money, but because they love it.
People who submits funny and/or interesting videos to Nico Nico Douga
- they are not doing this for money either. Nico Nico does not pay anything.
It is rather the love of what they are doing,
and all the feedbacks of the communities that motivates them.
The word "Thank you".
===================
Peer production
===================
***Vocaloid "Mutual Aid" Wiki***
There are projects that tries to get together various people and create artworks.
Some people can write music using DTM, some can create lyrics,
some can draw pictures, create animes, write wikis for the work etc.
They all can use their expertise to make a great work.
. ..and this reminded me of the project "Star Wreck".
***Star Wreck***
Star Wreck is a Star Trek parody movie created by students in Finland,
and was distributed under Creative Commons license.
They only had 5 people in the team- but when people started to see the video,
people who can make music told them they'd create music for them,
some told them they would help write the scenario,
and some told them they'd do extra actors- there were 300 people who helped create the movie
and 3,000 people in their active community.
Star Wreck was downloaded 5 million times, and got translated into 30 different languages.
They have a contract with Universal, and got their DVD sold
- although everything are public on the internet CC licensed.
They are planning to create more high quality movies with this community as "Star Wreck Studio".
===================
Parody dojinshi
===================
There are MASSIVE parody dojinshis and there's a LOT to write about,
but I would like to focus on the copyright infringement issue in this article
and probably write about those massive stuff elsewhere :P
Are parody mangas illegal? Basically, yes.
Unless the copyright holder explicitly says that they allow fanfic/parody, it is illegal to make parodies.
However, because the advertising effect of fanfic/parody is extremely big,
it is sometimes accepted as "grey zone".
There are cases that users are explicitly allowed to remix though...
***Hatsune-Miku***
Hatsune-miku has official pictures that people are able to be "inspired" and create parodies.
"Piapro", which stands for "peer production" is a site operated by Crypton (which produced Hatsune-Miku)
and people can upload their pictures, illustrations, music, video, etc that are parodies of Hatsune-Miku
(and other VOCALOID series)
This is the original illustration drawn by KEI
These are some of the various parodies that users created.
Miku illustration drawn by an artist called momone(成宮桃猫さん- Momoneko Narumiya） entitled "sora ni tokeru"
Another Miku illustration drawn by makotok1, entitled "negi furimachigaeta!"
Crypton made this Piapro site so that people can feel safe,
make sure they are not violating any law, and a place where everyone can bring together what they created
and can say "thank you" to what other people created.
Enhancing collaboration is the purpose of the site,
so only the works that allow parody or remix can be uploaded to Piapro.
Just like Creative Commons license, creators choose whether they want attribution,
or whether they allow derivatives, and upload them.
If you use other people's work, you put comment on the site and thank the creator for the artwork.
***Star Wars***
George Lucas always respected the creations of fans, and he is famous for it.
Last year, Lucas Arts officially launched a site called http://mashup.starwars.com/
where you can use the official video clips provided by Star Wars and create your own Star Wars fanvideo.
This site is operated on an interesting video sharing platform called "Eyespot".
They are not merely a video sharing site, but more of an online video remix site.
If I were to name 3 features of Eyespot, I would name
1) Video editing functions (especially their editing "effects")
2) Contents (They have contracts with various content holders like musicians and movie creators,
and you can download those clips to your own folder with one click)
3) CC licensed (Anything you upload on this site must be Creative Commons Attribution license)
quote from "terms of service"
***Anthologies***
Another interesting thing about Japanese dojinshi culture is that
although dojinshi and Comikets are thought to be "grey" regarding the copyright infringement,
anime parody anthologies are being sold in bookstores.
Anthologies are books that is full of parodies of animes, created by multiple doujin manga creators
and published by commercial publishers.
I was actually amazed by looking at top pafe of manga section of
Kadokawa- one of the largest publishers in Japan
.
This is what they had:
On the left, they sell Code Geass anthology, and on the right they sell the original Code Geass manga.
Kadokawa is a very interesting company indeed... they are doing various experimental projects.
***Kadokawa & YouTube***
"Haruhi" was an anime that was broadcasted in smaller TV stations,
not with national TV stations. But people loved it so much- and people who were able to watch the anime
started uploading the anime clips to YouTube.
(Completely illegal.)
And then, there were people who started creating English subtitled versions (called fansubs)
and those fansubs had enormous advertisement effect,
and when Kadokawa started selling English DVD of Haruhi,
it sold 60,000 copies just in North America.
(Haruhi was sold 80,000 copies in Japan)
Kadokawa learned from this fact, and decided to have alliance with YouTube as follows:
1) Kadokawa will create a "Kadokawa Channel" on YouTube, and will upload video contents there.
2) Kadokawa will give "reference movies" to youTube, and if there are any similar videos uploaded,
uploader will get a warning, and Kadokawa will get an alert. (90% accuracy according to Kadokawa)
3) Kadokawa can decide either to "delete" that video, "leave as it is" or "officialize" that video
-officialize meaning they will put a logo that the video is accepted by Kadokawa, and put ads on it.
4) Kadokawa might offer works such as movie creation of scenario writing- to the creators found on YouTube.
Why did this happen?
It is based on a decision made by Tsuguhiko Kadokawa who is the chairman of Kadokawa Group Holdings.
According to various articles, he saw various MAD animes created by users and uploaded on
YouTube, Nico Nico Douga, etc.
Views of Kadokawa's copyright infringement videos amounted 100million views.
He felt that merely telling them that it is illegal and turning them down isn't just right.
When Comiket started, publishers thought of them as "pirates" and they're bad,
Kadokawa thought of them as fans and a new place that creates new creators.
The same thing is happening here- this time in the video industry.
He wanted to find out a way to approve them.
"We shouldn't turn down the creators, nor should we diminish the motivations of those creators
by not paying for the contents/creators.
Japan should make a new system where it is benefitial for all of the
creators, distributers and content holders."
Indeed- Japan is getting a great opportunity with creativity of users,
and is facing a need for a new system to cope with such creativity.
Quote from Professor Nakayama from University of Tokyo:
Copyright system had the premise that professionals will be creating contents
and it does not match current trend of users generating various contents.
There is a need to reform the copyright system as well as promote the idea of "Commons".
Anyone can create contents and upload them on the internet.
It is an era of 100million creators (Japanese population is 100 million)
Also, copying has become so easy and probably everyone has a possibility that he or she
copied something illegal- it is also an era of 100 million criminals.
He states that the idea of "Commons" should be promoted more
-Creative Commons is based on the idea that "most contents will not be in commercial world"
and that it is trying to support the creators' will to get their contents distributed and/or reused by others
as well as fulfill the users' will to use the contents.
Today I would like to write my views on the cultural background of these cultures in Japan.
===================
Dojinshi and Comiket
===================
Dojinshi is self published books, which often are manga or novels,
and are majorly made by amateurs (although some professional artists publish Dojinshi as well).
There are 2 types of Dojinshi, original and parody.
Parodies include comics, novels, animes, games, celebritiess and idols, etc.
There are majorly 3 ways to buy Dojinshi
1) Dojinshi events (such as Comiket)
2) Online purchase
3) stores (though very limited)
1) Among the Dojinshi events, Comiket (which stands for Comic Market) is the largest one.
It is actually the world's largest comic convention, held twice a year in Tokyo.
Comicket has majorly parodies (especially anime parodies) and some original,
there are Dojinshi events such as Comitia which is original dojinshi only.
Quote from an article of Nikkei BP Consulting(JP)
Comiket72 was held on 2007/8/17-8/19, with 35,000 circles and 550,000 participants.
Revenue from official catalogues was 264,000,000 yen,
circle participation fee is 7,500 yen * 35,000 circles meaning 262,500,000 yen
Dojinshis are sold for an average of 1,000 yen, and MASSIVE amount of dojinshi are sold on these 3 days.
Comiket official site has an English PDF document explaining what Comiket is.
-Circles participants are 71% women, audience participants are 57% women.
-Circles genre are manga 41% anime 9% games30%
-Other(music, celebrities, sports, history, novels, etc) 20%
===================
Original Dojinshi
===================
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the symposium of Media Art Festival
and was found the panel discussion of Ms. Yumiko Shirai extremely interesting.
Ms. Shirai is a professional illustrator, and all the mangas that she publishes are published as dojinshi
sold either at Dojinshi events such as Comiket or Comitia, or online.
She wrote a doujinshi manga called "Tenjinsai", which won the prize in the comic division of the festival.
"Tenjinsai" is a Science Fiction / Fantasy manga,
about future of Japan which is nuclear polluted by war, and there are bamboos that cleanses
the radioactives.
Q: Why do you publish in Dojinshi rather than commercial manga publications?
A: I used to write in commercial manga publication.
However mangas that are expected in commercial world needs to be "catchy" and has cute girls
as those mangas sell well. You are expected to draw those.
If I write in Dojinshi, I can create whatever I want to,
and people who'd be deeply involved in my works will buy and read my books.
Q: How did you come to create dojinshi?
A: When I was in highschool- like all other people does...
Although there are lots of people who don't make dojinshi at highschools,
but it is true that we had the same situation in our highschool too.
People loves mangas here in Japan... so they write illustrations and mangas on notebooks etc
and some of them start copying them and distribute them to their classmates (with like 10 yen copy fee)
and some starts printing their mangas using publishing factories,
and start attending Comikets as audience... then as circles... then even as staffs.
I think that even if Dojinshi or Comikets existed or not does not affect
people's energy and motivation to create parodies
- love and imagination for the characters will be there anyways.
But because Comikets exists, people can enjoy it as a place to make their work public.
Oh- also, people were already making MAD animes already 10 years ago too.
They had several video recorders and were creating MAD animes like this.
HaruhiGellion
Actually, all of the other panelists: Kenji Taketomi who won the prize,
and the 2 judges - were all writing Dojinshi in the past.
Mr. Taketomi was submitting his mangas to commercial publications
and when they were not accepted, he would publish them as dojinshi.
So if there wasn't dojinshi market, those mangas would not have had anywhere to make it to the public.
Dojinshi served an excellent role of motivating the amateur manga creators
to create, publish and make public and sell at dojinshi events.
Mr. Monkey Punch, one of the judges- had nowhere to publish his mangas 42 years ago
(2 years before he started the famous Lupin series), and decided to create dojinshi.
He created 50 copies and sent them for free to the commercial publications
and eventually became a professional manga writer.
Mr. Kotobuki Shiriagari, the other judge- was actually amazed that Mr. Monkey Punch
was distributing his dojinshi for free.
He was in comic club in highschool, so the club made a dojinshi and went to Comiket
but made too much (2000 copies) and tried to sell them for profit and had a hard time he says.
So I think it all comes down to being able to create what the creators want to create,
and the existence of a place where they can make their creation public.
Dojinshi and Comiket was the place for manga creators for a long time...
and now with the videos, it is YouTube and Nico Nico Douga etc that serves those needs.
There is this very popular and AMAZING anime in Nico Nico Douga, "the song of fish".
This was created by one student as the graduation project
this creator created the anime, music, lyrics, everything.
This is another graduation project called "Whale", and the creator is saying that
if Nico Nico did not exist, this anime would have never been made public.
=========================
incentives for the creators
=========================
I think there are majorly 5 kinds of desires for the creators:
1) Desire to create (want to create things they like, they want to create)
2) Desire to make public of their creation
3) Desire to be accepted, get comments and feedback
4) Desire to make their creation better, desire to be remixed by others
5) Desire for reward (monetary compensation, fame, etc)
Not everyone desires the same thing, but I think the major desire that people has is those 5 things.
Dojinshi and Comikets fulfill those 5 desires.
Hatsune-Miku and Nico Nico Douga fulfill 1-4 desires,
and there is a hot debate in Japan as to how 5) shall be realized
-an effort to make a scheme to pay the creators.
For example, a scheme to pay the creators who uploaded interesting videos to Nico Nico Douga.
I think there are people who would be willing to pay the creators if they had the method
- but the industry is still debating about the best way how to conpensate (monetize) CGM.
Recently there was a creator who made a 3D CG application, which enables people to create 3DCGs.
The application was amazingly great and people who created 3DCGs using that tool
started to claim that they want to pay the creator :)
But there is no way people can pay under the status quo- and a method to create that is needed,
probably not as an ad model, but as a way to pay the creators directly.
This discussion reminded me of Magnatune - an online music label.
If individuals wanted to listen to music via Magnatune, they can listen and
if the individual liked that artist/music, they can pay the amount they want to pay to download the album.
(B2B models - like using for movies etc - has a different page for that too)
It is interesting to see what makes people motivated, and what is the best way to reward the creators.
For some people, it is money. For others, it is not necessarily money that makes them motivated.
For example, previously mentioned Mr. Monkey Punch was distributing his dojinshi free of charge.
Getting a job as manga creater was his goal- not getting paid for the mangas he created.
Distribution was more important for him then
- until he actually gets paid by the manga publishing companies.
At an event called Tokyo Game Show, there were people who does costume plays (cosplayers).
It is interesting to see that these cosplayers don't demand money for shooting photos of them
- rather, they say "please take a nice photo of me!" "thank you for taking a photo of me!" :)
They're not doing this for the sake of money, but because they love it.
People who submits funny and/or interesting videos to Nico Nico Douga
- they are not doing this for money either. Nico Nico does not pay anything.
It is rather the love of what they are doing,
and all the feedbacks of the communities that motivates them.
The word "Thank you".
===================
Peer production
===================
***Vocaloid "Mutual Aid" Wiki***
There are projects that tries to get together various people and create artworks.
Some people can write music using DTM, some can create lyrics,
some can draw pictures, create animes, write wikis for the work etc.
They all can use their expertise to make a great work.
. ..and this reminded me of the project "Star Wreck".
***Star Wreck***
Star Wreck is a Star Trek parody movie created by students in Finland,
and was distributed under Creative Commons license.
They only had 5 people in the team- but when people started to see the video,
people who can make music told them they'd create music for them,
some told them they would help write the scenario,
and some told them they'd do extra actors- there were 300 people who helped create the movie
and 3,000 people in their active community.
Star Wreck was downloaded 5 million times, and got translated into 30 different languages.
They have a contract with Universal, and got their DVD sold
- although everything are public on the internet CC licensed.
They are planning to create more high quality movies with this community as "Star Wreck Studio".
===================
Parody dojinshi
===================
There are MASSIVE parody dojinshis and there's a LOT to write about,
but I would like to focus on the copyright infringement issue in this article
and probably write about those massive stuff elsewhere :P
Are parody mangas illegal? Basically, yes.
Unless the copyright holder explicitly says that they allow fanfic/parody, it is illegal to make parodies.
However, because the advertising effect of fanfic/parody is extremely big,
it is sometimes accepted as "grey zone".
There are cases that users are explicitly allowed to remix though...
***Hatsune-Miku***
Hatsune-miku has official pictures that people are able to be "inspired" and create parodies.
"Piapro", which stands for "peer production" is a site operated by Crypton (which produced Hatsune-Miku)
and people can upload their pictures, illustrations, music, video, etc that are parodies of Hatsune-Miku
(and other VOCALOID series)
This is the original illustration drawn by KEI
These are some of the various parodies that users created.
Miku illustration drawn by an artist called momone(成宮桃猫さん- Momoneko Narumiya） entitled "sora ni tokeru"
Another Miku illustration drawn by makotok1, entitled "negi furimachigaeta!"
Crypton made this Piapro site so that people can feel safe,
make sure they are not violating any law, and a place where everyone can bring together what they created
and can say "thank you" to what other people created.
Enhancing collaboration is the purpose of the site,
so only the works that allow parody or remix can be uploaded to Piapro.
Just like Creative Commons license, creators choose whether they want attribution,
or whether they allow derivatives, and upload them.
If you use other people's work, you put comment on the site and thank the creator for the artwork.
***Star Wars***
George Lucas always respected the creations of fans, and he is famous for it.
Last year, Lucas Arts officially launched a site called http://mashup.starwars.com/
where you can use the official video clips provided by Star Wars and create your own Star Wars fanvideo.
This site is operated on an interesting video sharing platform called "Eyespot".
They are not merely a video sharing site, but more of an online video remix site.
If I were to name 3 features of Eyespot, I would name
1) Video editing functions (especially their editing "effects")
2) Contents (They have contracts with various content holders like musicians and movie creators,
and you can download those clips to your own folder with one click)
3) CC licensed (Anything you upload on this site must be Creative Commons Attribution license)
quote from "terms of service"
However, if you do choose to make Your Content available to other Eyespot users through the Eyespot website, you agree that Your Content is made available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Legal Code (Attribution 2.5) (the "Creative Commons License"), which is available here. The Creative Commons License allows others to copy, distribute, display and perform Your Content, and to make derivative works and commercial use of Your Content without paying any royalties to you. However, users are required to acknowledge your authorship and may only reuse or distribute Your Content under the same Creative Commons License. Please read the full terms of the Creative Commons License to understand your rights -- and the rights you are granting to others -- before sharing Your Content with other users of the Eyespot website.
***Anthologies***
Another interesting thing about Japanese dojinshi culture is that
although dojinshi and Comikets are thought to be "grey" regarding the copyright infringement,
anime parody anthologies are being sold in bookstores.
Anthologies are books that is full of parodies of animes, created by multiple doujin manga creators
and published by commercial publishers.
I was actually amazed by looking at top pafe of manga section of
Kadokawa- one of the largest publishers in Japan
.
This is what they had:
On the left, they sell Code Geass anthology, and on the right they sell the original Code Geass manga.
Kadokawa is a very interesting company indeed... they are doing various experimental projects.
***Kadokawa & YouTube***
"Haruhi" was an anime that was broadcasted in smaller TV stations,
not with national TV stations. But people loved it so much- and people who were able to watch the anime
started uploading the anime clips to YouTube.
(Completely illegal.)
And then, there were people who started creating English subtitled versions (called fansubs)
and those fansubs had enormous advertisement effect,
and when Kadokawa started selling English DVD of Haruhi,
it sold 60,000 copies just in North America.
(Haruhi was sold 80,000 copies in Japan)
Kadokawa learned from this fact, and decided to have alliance with YouTube as follows:
1) Kadokawa will create a "Kadokawa Channel" on YouTube, and will upload video contents there.
2) Kadokawa will give "reference movies" to youTube, and if there are any similar videos uploaded,
uploader will get a warning, and Kadokawa will get an alert. (90% accuracy according to Kadokawa)
3) Kadokawa can decide either to "delete" that video, "leave as it is" or "officialize" that video
-officialize meaning they will put a logo that the video is accepted by Kadokawa, and put ads on it.
4) Kadokawa might offer works such as movie creation of scenario writing- to the creators found on YouTube.
Why did this happen?
It is based on a decision made by Tsuguhiko Kadokawa who is the chairman of Kadokawa Group Holdings.
According to various articles, he saw various MAD animes created by users and uploaded on
YouTube, Nico Nico Douga, etc.
Views of Kadokawa's copyright infringement videos amounted 100million views.
He felt that merely telling them that it is illegal and turning them down isn't just right.
When Comiket started, publishers thought of them as "pirates" and they're bad,
Kadokawa thought of them as fans and a new place that creates new creators.
The same thing is happening here- this time in the video industry.
He wanted to find out a way to approve them.
"We shouldn't turn down the creators, nor should we diminish the motivations of those creators
by not paying for the contents/creators.
Japan should make a new system where it is benefitial for all of the
creators, distributers and content holders."
Indeed- Japan is getting a great opportunity with creativity of users,
and is facing a need for a new system to cope with such creativity.
Quote from Professor Nakayama from University of Tokyo:
Copyright system had the premise that professionals will be creating contents
and it does not match current trend of users generating various contents.
There is a need to reform the copyright system as well as promote the idea of "Commons".
Anyone can create contents and upload them on the internet.
It is an era of 100million creators (Japanese population is 100 million)
Also, copying has become so easy and probably everyone has a possibility that he or she
copied something illegal- it is also an era of 100 million criminals.
He states that the idea of "Commons" should be promoted more
-Creative Commons is based on the idea that "most contents will not be in commercial world"
and that it is trying to support the creators' will to get their contents distributed and/or reused by others
as well as fulfill the users' will to use the contents.
I had an opportunity to interview Kristopher Tate,
founder of Zooomr back in October last year.
Sorry for the delay in uploading this, Kristopher :(
Zooomr is an interesting photo-sharing realtime communication service:)
Kristopher is AMAZING. He started programming at the age of 4,
and founded/started Zooomr when he was 17, doing all of the programming, marketing, etc.
He is 19 years old as of October 2007 when I did the interview.
founder of Zooomr back in October last year.
Sorry for the delay in uploading this, Kristopher :(
Zooomr is an interesting photo-sharing realtime communication service:)
Kristopher is AMAZING. He started programming at the age of 4,
and founded/started Zooomr when he was 17, doing all of the programming, marketing, etc.
He is 19 years old as of October 2007 when I did the interview.
In Japan, there is an interesting service called "Nico Nico Douga (Smile Video)".
"Nico Nico" means "smile", and "Douga" means "video".
Basically, it is a video sharing site like YouTube etc, but what makes
Nico Nico Douga special is that the users can write comments "on" the video.
================================
1) Overview: what is Nico Nico Douga?
================================
Nico Nico Douga is a video sharing site that enables the users to write comments "on" the video.
In general, video sharing sites (like YouTube) enables the users to
write comments beneath the videos in the comments section, but not "on" the video.
So what is good about putting comments on the videos?
The answer is- that the comments itself becomes communication / contents / art :)
Personally speaking, if I were to view the same video content,
I'd rather see it on Nico Nico Douga than any other video sharing sites.
Nico Nico Douga requires you to register your account first
before you can upload videos, comment, or even watch the videos.
This article gives you English instructions on how to get Nico Nico account :)
-Let me know if you have any problem getting an account I think I can help out.
One example of Nico Nico videos can be seen here:
A) Comments as communication method
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, people watch videos of the seminars and comment and / or ask questions
and answer those questions etc "on" the video.
This clip is from a speech of Mr. Sasaki who works for Crypton
and is in charge of a Desktop Music Software called "Hatsune-Miku"
talking at the Japan Developers Conference.
Their CEO Ito-san loves the clips that the users created with Hatsune-Miku,
and Sasaki-san mentions how Ito-san is watching the Miku clips of Nico Nico Douga at his office :)
It is a very lovable situation when you imagine- and people are smiling
"wwww" means "laughter" in Nico Nico world.
B) "Danmaku comments"
------------------------------------------------
When you listen to music or go to Karaoke, people tends to sing along the "main phrase".
Just like that, people "comments" of the main phrase of songs in Nico Nico Douga.
"danmaku" means "curtain fire" in Japanese.
In the following picture, you can see how comments look like curtain fire or barrage.
C) Comments as "art"
------------------------------------
Anyone can easily comment on Nico Nico Douga, it is very easy.
And when you think about "comments", you usually imagine a short and simple one line text.
However, Nico Nico users' creativity far exceeded that presumption.
They create great art works using the "comment function" of Nico Nico Douga
using different size, colors, speed, etc with various techniques and calculations.
This is a great video to see those "comment arts"
comment arts from "Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga"
(more on this song "Kumikyoku" later)
Also, when this Kumikyoku was viewed 2million times or 3 million times,
those "shokunin"s starts to actively demonstrate their techniques as celebration.
2 million views festival
3 million views festival week 1
3 million views festival week 2
3 million views festival week 3
I think the reason why Nico Nico users were able to create such artistic comments
is because of ASCII art culture that here in Japan way before there was Nico Nico Douga.
へのへのもへじ existed from the old old days,
and other AA(ASCII ARTS) had existed in Japan for a long time.
∧＿∧ ／￣￣￣￣￣
（ ´∀｀）＜ hello!
（ ） ＼＿＿＿＿＿
｜ ｜ |
（_＿）＿）
======================================================
2) The community / Nico Nico and its stats
======================================================
I think the community is the most important aspect of Nico Nico Douga.
They are extraordinarily talented in finding interesting / funny stuff
and / or creating interesting / funny stuff.
Systemwise, being able to comment "on" the video" is not unique any more
- there are various competitors that entered the market.
However, what makes Nico Nico so special is that the community and their contents
that create the addictive-ness of Nico Nico Douga.
Number of users of Nico Nico and its competitors (as of October, 2007),
data source Net Ratings
Nico Nico Douga 3,860,000
Jimaku.in 119,000
Nif Nif Douga 11,000
YouTube has 14,551,000 users which far exceeds Nico Nico Douga,
but as for the amount of time spent in the site, Nico Nico is double that of YouTube.
Nico Nico Douga 2 hours 50 minutes 10 seconds
YouTube 1 hour 6 minutes 53 seconds
"Nico Chu" has become a popular world,
and it means "Nico Nico addict"
People becomes addicted to Nico Nico so much.
This chart is also from Netratings (press release of 2007/9/21)
It compares number of visits and hours of usage per user
of YouTube and Nico Nico Douga- you can see how drastic Nico Nico Douga is attracting usage.
<other stats>
5,000,000 registered users (as of 2008/1/19 )
174,000 paid users(Nico Nico Premium) (as of 2008/1/21)
1,000,000 mobile users (as of 2008/2/10)
800,000,000th comment posted (as of 2008/1/25)
- Data source: Dwango
60 million PV / day, 2,000,000,000 PV / month
(Operated by only 16 Web servers and 10 DB servers!!)
-Data source: Nikkei IT Pro
6,000 videos per day is being uploaded
-Data source: @Pia interview
Nico Nico's peak traffic is 60Gbps, and is worth 1/12 of the total traffic of Japan.
Active users are 1 million people per day.
-Data source: CNet Japan
Business model of Nico Nico Douga is not merely Ad model.
Revenue per month is over 100,000,000 yen (100,000 USD) ,
most of which comes from paid customers (Nico Nico Premium users who pays 525 yen per month).
- Data source: Nikkei BP Online
<Revenue per month, as of November 2007>
- Data source CNet Japan
Viacom was suing YouTube(Google) in US, Viacom Japan is having a contract with Nico Nico Douga.
Viacom Japan will create "MTV brand" page within Nico Nico Douga, and have a revenue share on the ad revenue.
- Data source: CNet Japan
======================================================
3) User Generated Contents
======================================================
One feature of Nico Nico Douga is that not many people do not upload
mere packages such as TV dramas and animes,
as mere packages are mostly deleted in Nico Nico Douga.
Most of the contents are user generated contents such as MADs (fan-made videos) or DIYs (songs, dances, etc)
People create and remix videos every day,
and there is a great "Remix Culture" within the Nico Nico Community.
In Nico Nico Douga, not only the video itself, but various things are "User generated".
A) User generated videos
Videos are created and uploaded by the users so it is user generated,
but as I mentioned previously, contents in Nico Nico are mostly MADs, Remixes and DIYs
that are created by the users, not mere packages of TV shows, animes etc.
B) User generated comments
Of course comments are generated by the users,
but the way users started to create art with comments are very very unique.
C) User generated tags
You can add tag to your own video, but you can add tag to other people's videos too,
and the "tag" section has become an area to communicate among the viewers and the video owner.
D) User generated affiliates (Nico Nico Ichiba)
Users can add products to the affiliate section,
and there are various funny / joke products in those sections
as the Nico Nico users LOVES finding and creating funny things.
There are lots of chaotic and crazyish videos in Nico Nico Douga.
Beneath those videos, you can find affiliates such as a ringtone saying "hey, calm down..."
or a CD called "hmm, this can be okay...".
This is an amazing video using ARToolKit, and its affiliate section has
a ringtone saying "The future is in our hands!" and "The great Japan"
and "Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" meaning there is a calling...
BTW, currently even if you put lots of videos, lots of comments, lots of affiliates,
none of the revenue goes to the users.
Then why do people participate? It is because it is fun. Because they like it.
They are doing it for the love, not for the money.
===========================
4) Examples of Nico Nico Videos
===========================
Contents you can see in Nico Nico Douga are various.
A) "Onmyoji".
This is one of the most famous videos, and is said to be one of the first "Danmaku" videos.
It was broadcasted on a Japanese TV show on 2007/3/17.
Personally, what interested me the most was that the guest in the TV show
was shown various services and clips and in the end when she was asked which one was the most interesting she chose this.
Until then, I thought these videos were not for "ordinary" people like her, but it was... :)
B) DIYs
Played "Jonetsu Tairiku" alone
(Believe it or not, this person is still a highschool student)
Drawn a picture series
"an ear speaker" "Sleeping Pharmacist"
Created the Opening video of an anime "Higurashi" using Excel
"Hello Windows", a song made by sampling Windows system sounds
A further "remix of Hello Windows"
C) Cats
Cats are LOVED by Nico Nico community
"Neco Nabe""Lethal Weapon Kitty"
D) VOCALOID
Hatsune-Miku is the most famous of the VOCALOID series.
Please refer to my previous article I have posted before.
Some more videos of Miku:
3DCG: dancing Miku
Mikus sang "Kimi wo nosete"
E) IDOLM@STER
IDOLM@STER is a name of a game that enables you to
become a producer and produce an idol talent.
BTW, this Master Artists series has the total of 6,000,000,000 yen
including all the games and related products, which is like... gosh!!!
- Data source: ASCII
Tokachi
Go My Way
F) Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga (Suite Nico Nico Douga)
There were lots of hit songs within Nico Nico Douga
(regardless of whether it is a hit outside Nico Nico...)
Makka na Chikai (Version J)
Gum- Rockman- Okusenman! (Version Gum)
Priests' Aquarion (Full Version)
From the collection of those songs,
Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga was created.
Then, various remixes were created.
piano version
origninal
Version J （1,272,933 views!)
Grand Finale
G) Real world impact
A company called Rantis decided to release a CD of those Nico Nico musicians
Rantis Kumikyoku feat.Nico Nico Artists [Maxi]
Also, Nico Nico musicians decided to do live performances.
H) DANJO
An artist called "Taro" sang a song called "Danjo (man and woman)"
and it became very popular in Nico Nico world, with various videos created.
Then, a user created an anime video of VOCALOID characters dancing to this song:
Bakaito and Hetaren dancing with Danjo
Bakaito and Hetaren increased version
and this anime video became traced by hundreds of people with different characters.
Danjo with Higurashi
Danjo with Moyashimon
People also started dancing to this song
And someone remixed this dance video
and this dance was remixed with other videos....
I) UMAUMA
A Swedish artist called "Caramell" released a song called "Caramelldansen" back in 2001.
The lyric sounds like this in Japanese : "No I don't need Barsamico vinegar" "ooh, ooh, yum yum"
Then, someone found this flash anime created in August, 2006
and started copying the video with various characters.
Caramelldansen
Caramelldansen IDOLM@STER
Caramelldansen Donad
Caramelldansen CLANNAD
Caramelldansen Kagamine Rin/Ren
Caramelldansen Kaito
Caramelldansen SOS
Caramelldansen Pikachu
There are various "digest" versions
tag search result for "caramelldansen" amounts to 1,024 clips!
People also uploads videos of various seminars, tutorials
(how to use various softwares), and learn/teach through those videos.
======================
5) Rights and Rules
======================
Nico Nico Douga has its own delete rules, and if the video is breaking those rules,
they will be deleted right away.
1) Nico Nico hires a "deleter" person, and delete illegal contents
especially pornographic contents.
2) Content holders are able to get "violation combat program"
which enables them to delete videos if they find any violation of their rights.
3) Users can submit complaint directly from any video.
Also, the Nico Nico users has developed their "common sense" within the community
and most of them believes that the content creator should receive respect.
If the content owner is selling those content,
then they know it is a BAD thing if any of the community member uploads those contents fully.
(Remixes and excerpts are generally thought of as OK, as it will increase the promotional effect)
"Nico Nico" means "smile", and "Douga" means "video".
Basically, it is a video sharing site like YouTube etc, but what makes
Nico Nico Douga special is that the users can write comments "on" the video.
================================
1) Overview: what is Nico Nico Douga?
================================
Nico Nico Douga is a video sharing site that enables the users to write comments "on" the video.
In general, video sharing sites (like YouTube) enables the users to
write comments beneath the videos in the comments section, but not "on" the video.
So what is good about putting comments on the videos?
The answer is- that the comments itself becomes communication / contents / art :)
Personally speaking, if I were to view the same video content,
I'd rather see it on Nico Nico Douga than any other video sharing sites.
Nico Nico Douga requires you to register your account first
before you can upload videos, comment, or even watch the videos.
This article gives you English instructions on how to get Nico Nico account :)
-Let me know if you have any problem getting an account I think I can help out.
One example of Nico Nico videos can be seen here:
A) Comments as communication method
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, people watch videos of the seminars and comment and / or ask questions
and answer those questions etc "on" the video.
This clip is from a speech of Mr. Sasaki who works for Crypton
and is in charge of a Desktop Music Software called "Hatsune-Miku"
talking at the Japan Developers Conference.
Their CEO Ito-san loves the clips that the users created with Hatsune-Miku,
and Sasaki-san mentions how Ito-san is watching the Miku clips of Nico Nico Douga at his office :)
It is a very lovable situation when you imagine- and people are smiling
"wwww" means "laughter" in Nico Nico world.
B) "Danmaku comments"
------------------------------------------------
When you listen to music or go to Karaoke, people tends to sing along the "main phrase".
Just like that, people "comments" of the main phrase of songs in Nico Nico Douga.
"danmaku" means "curtain fire" in Japanese.
In the following picture, you can see how comments look like curtain fire or barrage.
C) Comments as "art"
------------------------------------
Anyone can easily comment on Nico Nico Douga, it is very easy.
And when you think about "comments", you usually imagine a short and simple one line text.
However, Nico Nico users' creativity far exceeded that presumption.
They create great art works using the "comment function" of Nico Nico Douga
using different size, colors, speed, etc with various techniques and calculations.
This is a great video to see those "comment arts"
comment arts from "Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga"
(more on this song "Kumikyoku" later)
Also, when this Kumikyoku was viewed 2million times or 3 million times,
those "shokunin"s starts to actively demonstrate their techniques as celebration.
2 million views festival
3 million views festival week 1
3 million views festival week 2
3 million views festival week 3
I think the reason why Nico Nico users were able to create such artistic comments
is because of ASCII art culture that here in Japan way before there was Nico Nico Douga.
へのへのもへじ existed from the old old days,
and other AA(ASCII ARTS) had existed in Japan for a long time.
∧＿∧ ／￣￣￣￣￣
（ ´∀｀）＜ hello!
（ ） ＼＿＿＿＿＿
｜ ｜ |
（_＿）＿）
======================================================
2) The community / Nico Nico and its stats
======================================================
I think the community is the most important aspect of Nico Nico Douga.
They are extraordinarily talented in finding interesting / funny stuff
and / or creating interesting / funny stuff.
Systemwise, being able to comment "on" the video" is not unique any more
- there are various competitors that entered the market.
However, what makes Nico Nico so special is that the community and their contents
that create the addictive-ness of Nico Nico Douga.
Number of users of Nico Nico and its competitors (as of October, 2007),
data source Net Ratings
Nico Nico Douga 3,860,000
Jimaku.in 119,000
Nif Nif Douga 11,000
YouTube has 14,551,000 users which far exceeds Nico Nico Douga,
but as for the amount of time spent in the site, Nico Nico is double that of YouTube.
Nico Nico Douga 2 hours 50 minutes 10 seconds
YouTube 1 hour 6 minutes 53 seconds
"Nico Chu" has become a popular world,
and it means "Nico Nico addict"
People becomes addicted to Nico Nico so much.
This chart is also from Netratings (press release of 2007/9/21)
It compares number of visits and hours of usage per user
of YouTube and Nico Nico Douga- you can see how drastic Nico Nico Douga is attracting usage.
<other stats>
5,000,000 registered users (as of 2008/1/19 )
174,000 paid users(Nico Nico Premium) (as of 2008/1/21)
1,000,000 mobile users (as of 2008/2/10)
800,000,000th comment posted (as of 2008/1/25)
- Data source: Dwango
60 million PV / day, 2,000,000,000 PV / month
(Operated by only 16 Web servers and 10 DB servers!!)
-Data source: Nikkei IT Pro
6,000 videos per day is being uploaded
-Data source: @Pia interview
Nico Nico's peak traffic is 60Gbps, and is worth 1/12 of the total traffic of Japan.
Active users are 1 million people per day.
-Data source: CNet Japan
Business model of Nico Nico Douga is not merely Ad model.
Revenue per month is over 100,000,000 yen (100,000 USD) ,
most of which comes from paid customers (Nico Nico Premium users who pays 525 yen per month).
- Data source: Nikkei BP Online
<Revenue per month, as of November 2007>
- Data source CNet Japan
Viacom was suing YouTube(Google) in US, Viacom Japan is having a contract with Nico Nico Douga.
Viacom Japan will create "MTV brand" page within Nico Nico Douga, and have a revenue share on the ad revenue.
- Data source: CNet Japan
======================================================
3) User Generated Contents
======================================================
One feature of Nico Nico Douga is that not many people do not upload
mere packages such as TV dramas and animes,
as mere packages are mostly deleted in Nico Nico Douga.
Most of the contents are user generated contents such as MADs (fan-made videos) or DIYs (songs, dances, etc)
People create and remix videos every day,
and there is a great "Remix Culture" within the Nico Nico Community.
In Nico Nico Douga, not only the video itself, but various things are "User generated".
A) User generated videos
Videos are created and uploaded by the users so it is user generated,
but as I mentioned previously, contents in Nico Nico are mostly MADs, Remixes and DIYs
that are created by the users, not mere packages of TV shows, animes etc.
B) User generated comments
Of course comments are generated by the users,
but the way users started to create art with comments are very very unique.
C) User generated tags
You can add tag to your own video, but you can add tag to other people's videos too,
and the "tag" section has become an area to communicate among the viewers and the video owner.
D) User generated affiliates (Nico Nico Ichiba)
Users can add products to the affiliate section,
and there are various funny / joke products in those sections
as the Nico Nico users LOVES finding and creating funny things.
There are lots of chaotic and crazyish videos in Nico Nico Douga.
Beneath those videos, you can find affiliates such as a ringtone saying "hey, calm down..."
or a CD called "hmm, this can be okay...".
This is an amazing video using ARToolKit, and its affiliate section has
a ringtone saying "The future is in our hands!" and "The great Japan"
and "Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" meaning there is a calling...
BTW, currently even if you put lots of videos, lots of comments, lots of affiliates,
none of the revenue goes to the users.
Then why do people participate? It is because it is fun. Because they like it.
They are doing it for the love, not for the money.
===========================
4) Examples of Nico Nico Videos
===========================
Contents you can see in Nico Nico Douga are various.
A) "Onmyoji".
This is one of the most famous videos, and is said to be one of the first "Danmaku" videos.
It was broadcasted on a Japanese TV show on 2007/3/17.
Personally, what interested me the most was that the guest in the TV show
was shown various services and clips and in the end when she was asked which one was the most interesting she chose this.
Until then, I thought these videos were not for "ordinary" people like her, but it was... :)
B) DIYs
Played "Jonetsu Tairiku" alone
(Believe it or not, this person is still a highschool student)
Drawn a picture series
"an ear speaker" "Sleeping Pharmacist"
Created the Opening video of an anime "Higurashi" using Excel
"Hello Windows", a song made by sampling Windows system sounds
A further "remix of Hello Windows"
C) Cats
Cats are LOVED by Nico Nico community
"Neco Nabe""Lethal Weapon Kitty"
D) VOCALOID
Hatsune-Miku is the most famous of the VOCALOID series.
Please refer to my previous article I have posted before.
Some more videos of Miku:
3DCG: dancing Miku
Mikus sang "Kimi wo nosete"
E) IDOLM@STER
IDOLM@STER is a name of a game that enables you to
become a producer and produce an idol talent.
BTW, this Master Artists series has the total of 6,000,000,000 yen
including all the games and related products, which is like... gosh!!!
- Data source: ASCII
Tokachi
Go My Way
F) Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga (Suite Nico Nico Douga)
There were lots of hit songs within Nico Nico Douga
(regardless of whether it is a hit outside Nico Nico...)
Makka na Chikai (Version J)
Gum- Rockman- Okusenman! (Version Gum)
Priests' Aquarion (Full Version)
From the collection of those songs,
Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga was created.
Then, various remixes were created.
piano version
origninal
Version J （1,272,933 views!)
Grand Finale
G) Real world impact
A company called Rantis decided to release a CD of those Nico Nico musicians
Rantis Kumikyoku feat.Nico Nico Artists [Maxi]
Also, Nico Nico musicians decided to do live performances.
H) DANJO
An artist called "Taro" sang a song called "Danjo (man and woman)"
and it became very popular in Nico Nico world, with various videos created.
Then, a user created an anime video of VOCALOID characters dancing to this song:
Bakaito and Hetaren dancing with Danjo
Bakaito and Hetaren increased version
and this anime video became traced by hundreds of people with different characters.
Danjo with Higurashi
Danjo with Moyashimon
People also started dancing to this song
And someone remixed this dance video
and this dance was remixed with other videos....
I) UMAUMA
A Swedish artist called "Caramell" released a song called "Caramelldansen" back in 2001.
The lyric sounds like this in Japanese : "No I don't need Barsamico vinegar" "ooh, ooh, yum yum"
Then, someone found this flash anime created in August, 2006
and started copying the video with various characters.
Caramelldansen
Caramelldansen IDOLM@STER
Caramelldansen Donad
Caramelldansen CLANNAD
Caramelldansen Kagamine Rin/Ren
Caramelldansen Kaito
Caramelldansen SOS
Caramelldansen Pikachu
There are various "digest" versions
tag search result for "caramelldansen" amounts to 1,024 clips!
People also uploads videos of various seminars, tutorials
(how to use various softwares), and learn/teach through those videos.
======================
5) Rights and Rules
======================
Nico Nico Douga has its own delete rules, and if the video is breaking those rules,
they will be deleted right away.
1) Nico Nico hires a "deleter" person, and delete illegal contents
especially pornographic contents.
2) Content holders are able to get "violation combat program"
which enables them to delete videos if they find any violation of their rights.
3) Users can submit complaint directly from any video.
Also, the Nico Nico users has developed their "common sense" within the community
and most of them believes that the content creator should receive respect.
If the content owner is selling those content,
then they know it is a BAD thing if any of the community member uploads those contents fully.
(Remixes and excerpts are generally thought of as OK, as it will increase the promotional effect)
Dentsu announced the Japanese ad market report.
Here is the summary:
1) Total ad market of Japan is 7,019,100,000,000 yen (approximately 58.5 billion dollars)
-over 7 trillion yen for the first time
-increase from 2006 is only 1.1%
2) Internet ads, especially mobile ads is growing
-internet ads became the 3rd largest ad media
(1:TV 2:newspapers, 3:internet, 4:magazines)
*Note that TV, newspapers, magazines and radio ads were
the 4 top "mass ad media" in Japan,
and in 2005 internet ads surpassed radio ads which was a big news.
On 2007, internet ads surpassed magazines
and became the 3rd largest ad media
which is a big news for the Japanese ad industry.
-internet ad market is 600.3 billion yen (24.4% increase from 2006)
-media fee is 459.1 billion yen（126.5% compared to 2006）
-mobile ad is 62.1 billion (159.2％ compared to 2006)
mobile ads are used a LOT by national clients for mass campaigns
on drinks, automobiles, etc
<Japanese Ad Market>
<Japanese Ad Market>
Here is the summary:
1) Total ad market of Japan is 7,019,100,000,000 yen (approximately 58.5 billion dollars)
-over 7 trillion yen for the first time
-increase from 2006 is only 1.1%
2) Internet ads, especially mobile ads is growing
-internet ads became the 3rd largest ad media
(1:TV 2:newspapers, 3:internet, 4:magazines)
*Note that TV, newspapers, magazines and radio ads were
the 4 top "mass ad media" in Japan,
and in 2005 internet ads surpassed radio ads which was a big news.
On 2007, internet ads surpassed magazines
and became the 3rd largest ad media
which is a big news for the Japanese ad industry.
-internet ad market is 600.3 billion yen (24.4% increase from 2006)
-media fee is 459.1 billion yen（126.5% compared to 2006）
-mobile ad is 62.1 billion (159.2％ compared to 2006)
mobile ads are used a LOT by national clients for mass campaigns
on drinks, automobiles, etc
（number of cell phone contracts in Japan as of 2007/12 is 100 million.）
-within this 62.1 billion yen mobile ad market,
mobile search ad is 8.5 billion yen.
-search ad market is 128.2 billion yen.
-internet ad production fee is 141.2 billion yen (118.1％ from 2006)
<Japanese Ad Market>
<Japanese Ad Market>
I think lots of people are writing about Hatsune-Miku nowadays
but it seems that there still are people who has never seen nor heard of it,
so I would like to briefly summarize what is happening here.
1)What is Hatsune-Miku?
It is a DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media.
It was released in 2007,and was the best selling DTM software.
-DTM software that sells 1000 copies are supposed to be hit- Hatsune-Miku sold 30,000.
Its price is 140USD (15,000JPY)
According to BCN, Hatsune-Miku got nearly 30% of the share of DTM music,
and won the sound related software div. of BCN ranking last year.
Crypton has released their second product of the Character Vocaloid series: Kagamine-Rin/Ren.
I think Hatsune-Miku is creating a completely new phenomena,
where people who had never created music (just listens or hums or sings in Karaoke etc)
started creating original music using Hatsune-Miku.
Just like what blogs did in text world, what Youtube did in video world,
Hatsune-Miku is creating consumer generated "music" market in Japan.
It stimulated people’s creativity, not only did people create music,
but people who heard the music started to draw
amazing pictures, animes, and 3DCGs etc for the music.
but it seems that there still are people who has never seen nor heard of it,
so I would like to briefly summarize what is happening here.
1)What is Hatsune-Miku?
It is a DTM (Desktop Music) software created by Crypton Future Media.
It was released in 2007,and was the best selling DTM software.
-DTM software that sells 1000 copies are supposed to be hit- Hatsune-Miku sold 30,000.
Its price is 140USD (15,000JPY)
According to BCN, Hatsune-Miku got nearly 30% of the share of DTM music,
and won the sound related software div. of BCN ranking last year.
Crypton has released their second product of the Character Vocaloid series: Kagamine-Rin/Ren.
I think Hatsune-Miku is creating a completely new phenomena,
where people who had never created music (just listens or hums or sings in Karaoke etc)
started creating original music using Hatsune-Miku.
Just like what blogs did in text world, what Youtube did in video world,
Hatsune-Miku is creating consumer generated "music" market in Japan.
It stimulated people’s creativity, not only did people create music,
but people who heard the music started to draw
amazing pictures, animes, and 3DCGs etc for the music.
2) Why was Hatsune-Miku so successful?
Hatsune-Miku is not just a "software", but it has a character “Miku”
which you can see the picture as above, and its profile.
It is more like a virtual idol, and people who loved Miku started using the software
and it became to have a viral effect.
The voice is that of a very popular anime voice actor, Saki Fujita.
Quality of the software itself was good in that it was using "Vocaloid" software
which was originally developed by YAMAHA.
You can easily create songs and make Miku (with a cute voice) sing it for you
- which stimulated user's motivation.
A popular video sharing site in Japan called "Nico Nico Douga" ( meaning Smile Video ) and its community
contributed to the success of Hatsune-Miku largely.
I am plannig to write another post separately about Nico Nico Douga, but just in short
-it is a video sharing site by Niwango
-viewers can comment "on" the video itself, not beneath the videos as in YouTube etc.
which enables the users to communicate on top of the video contents asynchroniously
(and you don’t have to be logged in at the same time like Joost or Second Life etc)
-time spent per user exceeded YouTube according to NetRatings,
it is using 1/12 of Japanese internet traffic now.
-you cannot see videos unless registered and logged in, yet it is very very popular
-personally, I think it is much more fun to watch the same clip on Nico Nico Douga than Youtube
in that "comments" are "communication"
and we feel like we're watching the video together with the community.
-users can add videos, comments, subtitles, tags, affiliates, etc
-it is a very dense community
Anyways, I think this large and deep and dense community was one of the driving forces
that pushed Hatsune-Miku to one of the "hit" products.
3) Examples of various clips created by users
* You need a Nico Nico Douga account to watch the following videos.
This article gives you English instructions on how to get Nico Nico account :)
-Let me know if you have any problem getting an account I think I can help out.
Miku Miku ni shiteageru (I will make you Miku Miku!)
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
It got Jasraced and is on karaokes now.
Koi Suru Voc@loid
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
It got Jasraced and is on karaokes now.
Melt
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
When people create original and wonderful song with Miku,
others started to put pictures for that music, animes for that music,
and even 3DCGs for the music and the quality of those contents are AMAZING.
Examples of Miku 3DCG videos can be seen as follows:
Miku Miku ni shiteageru
Koi suru Voc@loid
Watashi no Jikan (my time)
-original song
Melody
-original song
Mr.Gibson who is an amazing Miku-3DCG creator started a lecture series
on how to create 3DCG lecture videos for others to create.
There are 10 lessons so far.
Levan Polkka
The song is not original, but someone made this anime
that Miku plays around with onion and this onion became
the "sign" of Miku and spread throught the community.
Also, this cute deforme Miku came to be called "Hachune-Miku"
which like a baby pronunciation of "Hatsune-Miku".
Because users love Hatsune-Miku,
Someone made Miku sing Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen.
Someone made a video drawing Miku
Someone made a tutorial of Hatsune-Miku
etc.. etc...
This positive and creative viral effect of people creating contents for the love not for the money
(they are not paid...!) is really really amazing.
...and not only did this phoenomena end as people creating songs and making Miku (the software) sing,
but people started to sing or play instruments of those Miku-original music in the real world.
Sung "Melt"
Played "Melt" with recorders
Played "Melt" with Alto Sax
Played "Hajimete no Oto" with acoustic guitar
"Miku Miku ni Shiteageru" orchestra version
Hatsune-Miku is not just a "software", but it has a character “Miku”
which you can see the picture as above, and its profile.
It is more like a virtual idol, and people who loved Miku started using the software
and it became to have a viral effect.
The voice is that of a very popular anime voice actor, Saki Fujita.
Quality of the software itself was good in that it was using "Vocaloid" software
which was originally developed by YAMAHA.
You can easily create songs and make Miku (with a cute voice) sing it for you
- which stimulated user's motivation.
A popular video sharing site in Japan called "Nico Nico Douga" ( meaning Smile Video ) and its community
contributed to the success of Hatsune-Miku largely.
I am plannig to write another post separately about Nico Nico Douga, but just in short
-it is a video sharing site by Niwango
-viewers can comment "on" the video itself, not beneath the videos as in YouTube etc.
which enables the users to communicate on top of the video contents asynchroniously
(and you don’t have to be logged in at the same time like Joost or Second Life etc)
-time spent per user exceeded YouTube according to NetRatings,
it is using 1/12 of Japanese internet traffic now.
-you cannot see videos unless registered and logged in, yet it is very very popular
-personally, I think it is much more fun to watch the same clip on Nico Nico Douga than Youtube
in that "comments" are "communication"
and we feel like we're watching the video together with the community.
-users can add videos, comments, subtitles, tags, affiliates, etc
-it is a very dense community
Anyways, I think this large and deep and dense community was one of the driving forces
that pushed Hatsune-Miku to one of the "hit" products.
3) Examples of various clips created by users
* You need a Nico Nico Douga account to watch the following videos.
This article gives you English instructions on how to get Nico Nico account :)
-Let me know if you have any problem getting an account I think I can help out.
Miku Miku ni shiteageru (I will make you Miku Miku!)
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
It got Jasraced and is on karaokes now.
Koi Suru Voc@loid
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
It got Jasraced and is on karaokes now.
Melt
One of the most popular Hatsune-Miku songs.
When people create original and wonderful song with Miku,
others started to put pictures for that music, animes for that music,
and even 3DCGs for the music and the quality of those contents are AMAZING.
Examples of Miku 3DCG videos can be seen as follows:
Miku Miku ni shiteageru
Koi suru Voc@loid
Watashi no Jikan (my time)
-original song
Melody
-original song
Mr.Gibson who is an amazing Miku-3DCG creator started a lecture series
on how to create 3DCG lecture videos for others to create.
There are 10 lessons so far.
Levan Polkka
The song is not original, but someone made this anime
that Miku plays around with onion and this onion became
the "sign" of Miku and spread throught the community.
Also, this cute deforme Miku came to be called "Hachune-Miku"
which like a baby pronunciation of "Hatsune-Miku".
Because users love Hatsune-Miku,
Someone made Miku sing Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen.
Someone made a video drawing Miku
Someone made a tutorial of Hatsune-Miku
etc.. etc...
This positive and creative viral effect of people creating contents for the love not for the money
(they are not paid...!) is really really amazing.
...and not only did this phoenomena end as people creating songs and making Miku (the software) sing,
but people started to sing or play instruments of those Miku-original music in the real world.
Sung "Melt"
Played "Melt" with recorders
Played "Melt" with Alto Sax
Played "Hajimete no Oto" with acoustic guitar
"Miku Miku ni Shiteageru" orchestra version
I wrote a post about our seminar on human rights, and interview video of Joi on Burma the other day.
Recently, I had an opportunity to visit the photo exhibit organized by Burma Info, and met a movie director Irene Marty.
Irene and her team had been shooting this film "IN THE SHADOW OF THE PAGODA"
to clarify what is really happening in Burma.
Journalists are not allowed to enter the counrty (no visa will be published)
so they went through all the difficulties to get this movie created and open to the public.
The movie will be screened at Shibuya Uplink from 3/15.
This is an interview video I shooted with Irene.
Photo exhibit will be held till 2/15, details can be seen here.
You will be able to see the photos of the army heading their guns toward the citizens,
people doing forced labor... what is really happening in Burma right now.
Recently, I had an opportunity to visit the photo exhibit organized by Burma Info, and met a movie director Irene Marty.
Irene and her team had been shooting this film "IN THE SHADOW OF THE PAGODA"
to clarify what is really happening in Burma.
Journalists are not allowed to enter the counrty (no visa will be published)
so they went through all the difficulties to get this movie created and open to the public.
The movie will be screened at Shibuya Uplink from 3/15.
This is an interview video I shooted with Irene.
Photo exhibit will be held till 2/15, details can be seen here.
You will be able to see the photos of the army heading their guns toward the citizens,
people doing forced labor... what is really happening in Burma right now.
Boris Anthony has been visiting the lab very often,
and recently I had an opportunity to interview him
on his works at Global Voices and Dopplr,
what he thinks is interesting (Adruino, PechaKuchaNight, Tokyo Art Beat), etc.
Thank you for your time, Boris!
and recently I had an opportunity to interview him
on his works at Global Voices and Dopplr,
what he thinks is interesting (Adruino, PechaKuchaNight, Tokyo Art Beat), etc.
Thank you for your time, Boris!
I often have occasions when I have to explain who is doing what in different organizations (CC, CC Japan, CC International, iCommons, etc) and thought it would be a lot easier if we had a chart where corporate organizations, location, missions and how they interact are clear enough for non-CC people to understand.
Would love to have feedback on this and fix accordingly :)
Would love to have feedback on this and fix accordingly :)
On 1/8, we did Joi Lab Seminar #4, this time the topic was human rights.
We had Ms. Kanae Doi from Human Rights Watch as the speaker,
Ms. Yuki Akimoto from Burma Info came to talk about the situation in Burma,
and Joi talked about Witness which he is the board member of,
and Mr. Oki Matsumoto from Monex etc to discuss.
The video is in Japanese, but we shooted Joi's message video on Burma as follows:
1月8日に人権問題についてJoi Lab Seminarを行いました。
今回はHuman Rights Watchの土井さんが少年兵について、Burma Infoの秋元さんがビルマの実態について、JoiはWitnessについて話し、マネックスの松本さんに加わって頂いてのディスカッションを行いました。
セミナーの様子のビデオを撮影しましたので、下記ご覧頂けます。
また、当日Joiのビルマについてのメッセージビデオを撮影しましたので ご覧下さい。
Burma Infoでは2月5日(火)〜15日(金)に写真展を行うそうです。
お時間のある方は是非いらしてください。
We had Ms. Kanae Doi from Human Rights Watch as the speaker,
Ms. Yuki Akimoto from Burma Info came to talk about the situation in Burma,
and Joi talked about Witness which he is the board member of,
and Mr. Oki Matsumoto from Monex etc to discuss.
The video is in Japanese, but we shooted Joi's message video on Burma as follows:
1月8日に人権問題についてJoi Lab Seminarを行いました。
今回はHuman Rights Watchの土井さんが少年兵について、Burma Infoの秋元さんがビルマの実態について、JoiはWitnessについて話し、マネックスの松本さんに加わって頂いてのディスカッションを行いました。
セミナーの様子のビデオを撮影しましたので、下記ご覧頂けます。
また、当日Joiのビルマについてのメッセージビデオを撮影しましたので ご覧下さい。
Burma Infoでは2月5日(火)〜15日(金)に写真展を行うそうです。
お時間のある方は是非いらしてください。
