JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

acubed's past comments

• 

  0

  acubedMay. 18, 2010 - 01:31PM JST

  The first thing is to get your definitions right. Most child protection agencies in the West prefer the term "child abuse images" to "child pornography" because the term "child pornography" legitimises the content in a way that "child abuse images" do not. However, just as we disallow murder, theft, arson, rape, torture but allow literary, film, animation and other visual depictions of those crimes, we should be careful not to create thought crimes by outlawing virtual imagery of any kind. The current discussions on banning anime and manga featuring sex with apparently under-age people (apparently is the key here because if the character is created there is not real age, nor a real child being abused) is ignoring the real explitation and abuse of children from the AKB/MM crowd to the imouto.tv and Garo Aido material. That kind of material is already illegal in many other jurusdictions and rightly so since real young people are being exploited and individually sexualised to produce the material. Free speech demands a high standard that we allow anything that does no harm in its production. Just as with all other fiction about illegal acts there is no serious evidence that viewing it leads to acting it out (and while there are psychological theories that suggest social learning takes place to normalise the viewed scenes, there are also psychological theories about the use of fiction to relieve desire to commit illegal acts). There are also horrendous boundary problems that are raised by suggestions of banning something imaginary. Do we ban exactly the same material that we would ban if it were real? Do we ban everything from Nabokov's Lolita to Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 (skirt-lifting scenes in both the manga and the anime involving HS girl characters)? By all means ban the possession of actual abuse images of children (which includes sexual exploitation photography). but don't divert the focus from the protection of real children from the abuse (filmed, photographed or not) and onto such thought crimes.

  Posted in: What is the most effective way to eradicate the sale and possession of child porn?

• 

  0

  acubedFeb. 10, 2010 - 06:58PM JST

  Music and book publishers are still convinced that they are producing and selling Rolls-Royce cars when, in reality, their product has become as commoditised as a hamburger. The pricing they are setting is predicated on the idea that they sell an individuated premium product, when what they are selling is, for most people, background (particularly music) not foreground.In addition, the old argument over the price of CDs and books, which they claimed were set at the prices they were due to production, storage, distribution, wholesaler and retailer costs and profits. With electronic files there is no storage, minimal distribution costs and no wholesaler. Why haven't prices come down? Because the publishers believe that they're selling a Rolls-Royce for which they can charge what they like, rather than a hamburger which has a very slim profit margin. The fact that authors/musicians still only see a tiny proportion of this same (or higher) selling price despite lower distribution costs provides an emotional justification to "consumers" for sharing on unauthorised networks. provide access at a subscription rate, on easy-to-use (i.e. not rstricted to a single OS or platform) or at a very low price (10c per file) and you'll find that most people will pay for the access. Simple economics that the publishers are completely blind to. Then you cut the ridiculous costs of advertising, executives pay, "fruit'n'flowers" and return to your core business of identifying and developing talent, and providing polishing services (copy-editing, mixing etc) on top.

  Posted in: Warner CEO sees e-book `fracas' as helping music

• 

  0

  acubedFeb. 06, 2010 - 08:30PM JST

  First thing you need to do is stop using the cutesy name for it. Call it what it actually is: In English, "Cheating"; In Japanese "Kataru" or "Damasu". I'm about to start teaching at a Japanese University, though at the graduate school level. having just dealt with a 10% plagiarism rate in an assignment for a large class in the UK, I had been hoping it might be less of a problem in Japan. I'll have to keep just as alert, though, I see.

  Posted in: The dumbing down of Japanese students

Follow us