mt-i's tweets
- 凄い寛大さ！w （ってか日本では教授も自ら採点なんて驚きました） RT @hazuma ちなみにぼくの試験の回答、「らき☆すた」は結局☆がなくても正解にしましたｗ — 2 days 17 hours ago
- @jpmeyer @ayalan Come to think of it, Japan can poke fun at bizarre gaijin pretty badly too, especially weeaboos :3 http://is.gd/eTTzJ — 3 days 4 hours ago
- Brilliant! RT @jpmeyer: @bikasuishin @ayalan also, every time i see WACKY JAPAN articles i think of this: http://bit.ly/a2LUni — 3 days 5 hours ago
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Forgot to add
3.1 The software is locked intentionally to only work with Japanese OS
4. minori website blocks all foreign access
5. minori requests foreigners to solve the rapelay problem as if all foreigners are responsible
"They sent an email to one of the project members and didn't get a reply (not to the TLWiki owner himself though)"
Obviously if you're going to resort to vandalizing a website, you had better consult its owner first. Also, I have doubts that they even went that far. Is there any proof they even sent an email first?
"[minori] was quite open to translations"
No it isn't. They made up a bunch of ridiculous restrictions that obviously mean they have no intention of allowing a translation. Off the top of my head, they want it sent to a ratings company, and they want any negotiation to be done in their country. What are the chances this will ever happen? Clearly, they're just making conditions up to justify taking it down.
"you just want to believe that everyone in Japan is xenophobic"
I don't believe that everyone in Japan is xenophobic. As another example of a VN developer, Ryu07 was actually happy Umineko was getting translated. It's just Minori who's racist, not the whole of Japan. Don't make biased assumptions about other peoples' opinions.
1. minori doesn't allow usage of their software outside Japan
2. minori doesn't allow buying/selling of their software outside Japan
3. Said softwares does not work without Japanese operating system
Sounds racist to me.
And no don't get me on that BUT THEY NEED TO DEFEND THEMSELF shit as I don't fucking care.
"The owner of the site would have surely taken it down if they had simply emailed him instead of throwing a tantrum. "
They sent an email to one of the project members and didn't get a reply (not to the TLWiki owner himself though); I don't think they waited very long though. I think it's reasonable to do what they did.
"You should have clarified that the company has no intentions of releasing their product to an English audience (in fact, they are quite clearly against that). "
Have you even read what Minori said? They were quite open about translations, they just want it to be a legal translation. Not that you'll listen, you just want to believe that everyone in Japan is xenophobic because of your (rather racist) prejudices.
Also this article is a joke, get your facts right before going on rants about the VN community.
So apparently now it's a completely respectable action for a company to take to vandalize someone else's website. The owner of the site would have surely taken it down if they had simply emailed him instead of throwing a tantrum. In any event, you make it sound as if this is about piracy. You should have clarified that the company has no intentions of releasing their product to an English audience (in fact, they are quite clearly against that). This is just about denying a product to non-Japanese. I don't know about you, but I find that quite racist.
>TLwiki members reverting the blanking multiple times and sending a copious amount of profanities minori's way
Cool facts, bro. Do you have no idea about how a Wiki works?
Just because minori is acting whithin their legal rights does not mean they're not assholes for doing so.
Why should we care about the eroge industry when they don't care about us?
minori: BAWWWWW, people like our work enough to translate it to another language, how dare they sully our culture like that, only glorious Japanese peoples should be able to play our games
[...] anti-censorship crusade in China, but furthering the issue as a legal matter will be difficult as suggested by others in the community since the site hosts copyright infringing derivative works without [...]
"Because, by this reasoning, you might as well ban Ocean's 11 to prevent thieves from awakening."
These laws are only a excuse to censoring more using something that majority don't care much (in this case mere comics). Step after step people sell freedom but when they will wake up will be too late.
Pedophile is a disorder that consist in being atracted by children, Lolita complex is about being atracted by young femines, read Navokob cause he started it.
In my eyes Estupro (having sex with an kid older than 13) is far away from pedophile, cause while a 8 yo boy is the same as a 8 yo girl a 13 yo child already have the characteristics (socialy, psicologicaly and sometimes fisicaly) of their gender, so is a girl or a boy before being a child.
In todays worl Homosexuality and Incest are not the tabu they were, cause today sex is not only for reproduction. But while in some country a lesbian couple can be acused of mutual rape, cause consent can only be with a especific gender.
So while in our western culture it doesnt matter the gender but the age, it doesnt matter if the 16 year old girl loves the 28 year old man, it still rape. As in the previous case it doesnt matter if two woman love themselvs, obviously they are forced (by one of them, or by mental illness) so is still rape.
What legislators around the world believe they are doing is that, by curbing these fictional depiction of child pornography - and it is assinine to argue that these things aren't depicting children in a pornographic manner - they are also curbing any number of future paedophiles from "awakening".
This is why legislators have a well-deserved reputation for being idiots.
Is this really a belief honestly held by anyone? Or is this primarily an issue of revulsion - that people are so offended by the material that they want to see it eliminated by any means, and the "awakening" rationale is merely a justification to side-step those pesky First Amendment issues.
Because, by this reasoning, you might as well ban Ocean's 11 to prevent thieves from awakening.
"It is not entirely fair to say that this removal is tantamount to dropping sites advocating gay marriage."
Legally, the acts differ, but culturally - which is where the discussion of normalization and oppression comes in - the two are very similar. For many years homosexual material was marginalized, reviled, and given the same treatment that a majority of people now aim at lolicon material. My suggestion that what google is doing is harmful in cultural terms was not made on legal grounds. Surely we can agree that being legally allowed or required to do something does not make it right.
"But it does sound a little disingenuous to pose as virtuous opponents of censorship afterwards."
Yes. In fact, it is hypocritical.
I'm in Japan right now, but some relatives planned to come over and we were going to make trips around Kantō together. I'd booked a night in Shima-onsen which came highly recommended by Japanese colleagues. I can't tell you how great it is myself though; but I went to Minakami-onsen also in Gunma-ken a few years ago and that was pretty nice as well (I almost said “cool” but that'd be a poor choice of words :p).
That's a shame!
I can't quite work out where you live, but it must be in Europe judging by the interruption by the volcano and in a French speaking country judging by your blogroll so that narrows it down to France, Belgium, Luxembourg or possibly Germany.
I really want to go to Gunma-ken hot springs too! Which one were you going to go to? I need a recommendation!
"none of the images they could have found on that site, namely drawings, could under any circumstance be considered apparent child pornography."
My opinion is that there are plenty of images on that site that are apparently/appears to be images of children engaged in sexual act and are of a pornographic [pornography - creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire] nature, and I believe the very vast majority of people, including judges and juries, would agree with me.
What legislators around the world believe they are doing is that, by curbing these fictional depiction of child pornography - and it is assinine to argue that these things aren't depicting children in a pornographic manner - they are also curbing any number of future paedophiles from "awakening". These laws are preventative measures, not penal measures punishing people causing sexual abuse to children. Most of the population will feel these laws and their reasoning are justified, because protecting children is important enough for people to willingly give up some rights to freedom, especially if it's someone else's rights (America, anyone?).
We cannot win this war for our rights by claiming that lolicon hentai isn't apparently child pornography. That is at best wordplay, at worst denial. I don't know what it would take to change popular opinion (probably nothing can) but our only path to victory is to convince people and legislators that it has no impact on real child pornography whatsoever.
Looks like Google's a bunch of hypocrites after all...
C'mon guys, go all the way. Put up MISSING posters with some SD cartoon character's face on it!
A very thorough and enjoyable article.
"I almost wish that someone would try it, just to witness the ensuing shitstorm."
I've pondered this as well, if we really submitted 250 sites with "obscenity" on it, (everything from 4ch to something awful), what would happen if they were all removed from google for the same reasons. I think it would be an interesting political statement any citizen can take, but it would take a fair amount of people.
It would pretty much force Google to make a move, which is what they're avoiding. Could be interesting.
Otherwise, thanks for the constant-source of quality information, mt-i. I tried to sum up everything as well best I could using all available legal references for a follow-up.
Your extensive research is always helpful.
Not that I really want to "defend Google's hypocrisy" again, but that Webmaster Support Forum really wasn't the right place for the conversation, and people had said that in the now-deleted thread (and pointed them to the FAQ on Chilling Effects that explains how to contest a notice). So even if the question was "politely-worded", not getting an official reply from Google in that forum wasn't all that surprising, and based on the way the thread degenerated it wasn't a surprise that it got deleted. So now we've whittled the issue down to them having taken a farther-reaching action than appears to have been legally required (based on some more-precise interpretations of some rather confusing and sometimes-overlapping statutes), and not replying to a post on a support forum that wasn't designed to deal with legal matters. And now the group in question is dropping the whole issue because it's clear their content has no legal protection anyway, thus leaving us in a situation where people can interpret this in any way they choose. Of course, most people assume the worst.
To be clear, even though I live in a country that does not have as much ambiguity on this issue, I don't think this sort of apparent-censorship is a good thing especially if it's at odds with correct interpretations of the law. But I guess I just don't automatically attribute to malice what could be more easily be explained by misinterpreting the somewhat-confusing rules coupled with the number one motivator in pretty much all organizations: CYA. We also don't know who issued the complaint and what sort of credibility/authority they have, so we can only wait and see if the assumption that just anyone anywhere can trigger these sorts of take-downs holds true. Time will tell.
Another case of the PROTECT Act's tentacles going where it has no place going. Hell, Chilling Effects definition of CP is out of date (kudos to Cornell's School of Law for keeping up with this over-reaching B.S. law). This is another case moralf49ottry from people who get off on censoring something that they don't like. It's crap like this that makes me facepalm for my country.
There's also a reason the Touhou-community refers to CNN as 'Cirno News Network' nowadays.
They're been fabricating one idiotic news article after the other, with contents that are frequently horribly (or not at all) researched, clearly biased, lack common sense, or are just plain downright stupid.
I think they're just trying to make one controversial big-impact headline after the other because they want people to pay attention to them, which has been directed towards them less and less.
Taking anything they say with more than a grain of salt seems advisable.
It's a very belated response to this, but retrospectively, I enjoyed Sora no Woto more than I enjoyed K-On. It just struck a chord with me. No pun intended.
But, in general, I don't get the moe-bashing at all.
K-On! and K-On!! are exactly what they were intended to be, adaptations from the 4koma of the same name. There's a lot of added in stuff for the music-otaku to otaku-gasm about, but in general, it's about as close an adaptation of the 4koma as 4koma adaptations get. On that end, I'd argue it made the transition better than Lucky Star did. I don't quite get how one could bash it for being a good adaptation of the in my opinion just as moe-blobby source material. It seems sorta ass-backwards to expect anything different.
I mean. Two words: Kanon. Uguu.
The chardesigns in Kanon are basically the definition of strangely-distorted moeblobs, this goes especially for Ayu. It was still very well done. There was no flaming for the chardesigns.
I'm thinking people who flame about this stuff nowadays just have their heads up their own asses too far to just go and comfortably sit down to enjoy it.