Wasn’t aware of that, but (again no offense to you, it’s just the system here) it won’t make much of a difference.

There are plenty of people in Japan who talk about the YouTube videos being removed and write the TV stations and tell them they should leave them for various reasons, but they don’t care.

Foreign opinion matters even less because we aren’t the target for their commercials etc.

Intellectual property laws and the way companies handle them here are insanely convoluted. I deal with these people at least once every two weeks or so, and it is maddening. Take a look at the Japanese wikipedia for example. Notice the near complete lack of images? All because of IP rights and the way the companies here deal with them. They don’t sue their customers like the RIAA etc. but they do not allow their stuff to be used in any way, shape or form that they don’t expressly approve and control, and the very fact that you run this site which shows the stuff without their permission will disqualify you from obtaining any such rights. Never matter that had you attempted to get rights to publish any of this stuff they would have turned you down.

It’s mind numbing the way these things work here. I am contracted to do translation with 2 major animation companies here and even though Japanese animation has finally gotten to the point where it is exported regularly, the restrictions and processes involved are just amazing. It’s almost as if they don’t want to make money.

I actually am a real-life television producer for my day job. Just an FYI.

Thanks for your thoughts though. I do understand it’s very tough to license clips from Japanese media companies, mostly because of talent agencies. I am VERY interested however in trying to build with people who are open to new media there.

As with so much else here in Japan this is more about appearances than and logical concepts.

It doesn’t matter that they are getting free advertising. Piracy (low quality video or not) is thought to be bad, so it must be combated. That is the going rhetoric and the company line and all the other companies fall in with it. Add to the general Japanese business “follow the leader” and “that’s how it’s always been done” mindsets the fact that the people who make these decisions are more often than not in their 50’s and above (go to any Japanese TV conglomerate website and look at the photos of all the senior officers, gives new meaning to “senior” office, alot of these guys are in their 70’s) and/or are so far removed from reality (classic “manager doesn’t actually understand the business” syndrome has been elevated to an art form in most Japanese companies) that there is no hope of things changing until they retired or dead, and at that point you will have another batch of people in there who will move some things forward (at 10 years behind the rest of the world) but still adhere fervently to the “that’s the way it’s always been done” philosophy that is so prevalent here.