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Originally Posted by CK01
Japan signed the Berne Convention, so technically it should receive full copyright protection as if it was produced in North America/Any other Berne Convention country, just the reverse should occur.
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Thanks! I suspected that Japan was probably a signatory. So that suggests that it's the economic reason for not chasing a lot of this down: it isn't costing the industry enough to bother. I think a huge press run for a doujinshi is 10,000 and a lot of them probably circulate in much smaller numbers, which is puny compared to the typical numbers for the legitimate publications. (Some manga magazines, for instance, have circulation numbers that would be envied by a lot of *mainstream* magazines in the U.S.)* I think the artists aren't making enough money off the "parodies" to concern the publishers. (I know they *have* been trying to do something about the piracy elsewhere in eastern Asia...)
*There's a reason Takahashi Rumiko is one of the richest people in Japan...
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Just because of the language/distance barrier makes it harder to be hit by legal action, doesn't make it legal.
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It's really more the distance and international wrangling that's involved, I believe. I think the publishers are not bothering about a lot of it also because the people posting things on the 'Net aren't charging money for others to view it (usually). I haven't looked into how far along the laws have developed on copyrighted material used on the Internet, but certainly some amount of what's going on on boards and sites *is* formally illegal and a lot is dubious.
Anyway, I prefer to err on the side of not posting enough to really tick off someone's Legal Department...