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How the Expired Copyright License of Old Literary Works Could Keep Japan’s Cultural Soil Fertile

How the Expired Copyright License of Old Literary Works Could Keep Japan’s Cultural Soil Fertile

When it comes to reading famous literary works whose copyright license has expired, there is one piece of software that is renowned for doing the job rather well. It goes by the name of “Aozora Bunko” and is a digital contents reader available on a wide variety of devices; there’s even a version available for smart phone users. It is currently host to a plethora of copyright-free material rich in Japanese history and culture. What’s particularly exciting is that the more time goes by, the more the library of works can be seen to grow.

Anyone with an interest in old Japanese masterpieces – and can read Japanese – will surely be lured in by what this software has to offer. In this connection, on January 1 this year, the legendary writer Eiji Yoshikawa’s work “Miyamoto Musashi” is also set to be added to the collection. Miyamoto Musashi is a bestselling novel depicting the life of legendary samurai Musashi Miyamoto, who actually existed during the Japanese Edo era.

Just what makes all this free content possible is the rule that governs copyright licensing laws: 50 years after an author has passed away, copyrighted works are released freely into the public domain.

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Erotic Content and Cheap, Throwaway Titles Driving E-Book Sales in Japan: An Industry Insider Speaks Out

Erotic Content and Cheap, Throwaway Titles Driving E-Book Sales in Japan: An Industry Insider Speaks Out

Despite being famed for its robot dogs, futuristic toilets and for being home to Akihabara “Electric Town”, Japan is at times slower than other countries to warm to new electronic devices and worldwide trends.

Just two years ago, hardly any of my Japanese friends used Facebook, instead preferring Japanese social networking service Mixi or to keep their private life off the Internet altogether. When I showed them my iPhone (and let it be known that I was fairly late to the smartphone party), many of my workmates would shrug the device off as over-complicated and mutter about how their current mobile phones – now known as garakē (after the “Galapagos syndrome” due to their exclusivity to and being unable to perform well outside of Japan) – being more than enough for them. Today, Facebook and Twitter are the same life-consuming creatures in Japan that they are everywhere else in the world, and people are accessing them from their iOS or Android powered smartphones wherever you look.

E-books, on the other hand, just aren’t taking off. I’ve shown my Kindle e-reader to friends and colleagues for years now, but each time it has been met with raised eyebrows and the same simple response: “But I like going to bookshops.” While the smartphone has gradually found its place in the hearts of the Japanese people, when it comes to literature, the vast majority of readers still much prefer a physical, paper copy.

In a piece written for Niconico News by journalist and publisher Jun Yamada, however, we learn that there is one genre that has found a home on Japan’s e-readers, to the degree that, Yamada argues, Japan’s e-book market could be in danger of becoming little more than an outlet for cheap, trashy or sexual content, with genuine literature as we know it hardly getting a look-in.

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Japanese Convenience Stores to Remove Adult Magazines from Shelves?

Japanese Convenience Stores to Remove Adult Magazines from Shelves?

Just last week while picking up milk at my local 7-Eleven, I found myself chuckling at the sight of a teenage boy trying to peek at the adult magazines arranged on the rank right beside the comic books. I had to admire his technique as he stood holding a weekly manga collection open in front of him while staring, unblinking and open-mouthed, at the covers of the naughty magazines to his right.

Alas, this young man and thousands like him could soon be reduced to checking out far more explicit and abundant images of girls via the internet as “a certain convenience store” is rumoured to be clearing its naughty magazine section away very soon.

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