The 7th International Manga Conference held by the Japan Society for Cartoon and Comics Studies will take place in Kyoto on June 16th and 17th at Kyoto Seika University and the Kyoto International Manga Museum respectively.

Guests from the U.S. include Matt Thorn, Viz Media Executive Vice President Hyoe Narita and Tokyopop General Manager Masashi Matsuhashi.

Source: Anime! Anime!

So now you've read the "Idiot's Guide to Online Copyright Issues" from Part I and an in-depth analysis of the laws from Part II, what's left? We took the ideas explored in Part I, and created a questionnaire, which we then sent to various website/blog authors and people from around the online scene.

The questionnaire looks as follows:

Person A writes an article in Japanese, Person B translates Person A's article
into English and posts it on his own website...

1. Without asking for permission first or giving credit
2. Gives credit but did not ask for permission
3. Got permission and gave credit

One of the first people we contacted, surprisingly, is not involved with the anime/manga community at all. However, this doesn't mean you should skip what he has to say. Allow me to introduce Jonathan Bailey from Plagiarism Today, a site "targeted at Webmasters and copyright holders regarding the issue of plagiarism online."

*We would also like to thank Jonathan Bailey for helping out with this project, providing us with valuable information related to copyright and plagiarism issues.

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In Part I, we introduce you to the basic concept of copyright infringement and plagiarism, and how they apply to translating contents on the internet. For Part II, we contacted Ronnor from the Japanese law blog called Ahowota Law Student News. Ronnar has expressed his own view on the matter, below is a translation of Ronnor's article (translated with Ronnor's approval, of course!):

Unauthorized Translation and Copyright Law

1. Background information on the problem

Like the Japanese - no, even more than the Japanese - overseas otaku want to know the latest information about Japan's anime and manga. As a comparatively recent example, the problem of Rozen Maiden's hiatus was given headline treatment on an overseas site (*1). However, unless the work is in the The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (*2) class, with plans for world-wide development, the original publishers hardly ever give English press releases. Information is transmitted only in Japanese, a minority language in the global scheme.

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Copyright infringement and plagiarism existed long before the internet became a household name. However, with the internet quickly finding its way into people's homes, and a little help from the ever-developing technology, more and more people are able to easily make their own website/blog.

The problem is that with so many people producing content, unauthorized use of someone else's content is now just a copy/paste away. This article won't look at the general issues involved with online plagiarism and copyright infringement (which have already been discussed many times elsewhere), but it will focus on a specific case of copyright infringement.

This article is the result of a collaboration between ComiPress, a Japanese law blog called Ahowota Law Student News, and many others who provided useful insights and comments. Due its length, the article has been divided into three parts. In Part I, we introduce the basic concept of copyright infringement and plagiarism, and how they apply to translating contents on the internet. In Part II, we provide a translation of Ahowota Law Student News's opinion on the subject. In Part III, we take the concepts explored in Part I and present them to other site/blog's authors, journalists, and people from the industry to get an outside view on the issue.

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From Reuters comes an article titled "Foreign manga artists face tough challenge in Japan", which looks at the obstacles foreign students face while attending schools for manga in Japan.

Via: Journalista

A small update on Kodansha's International Manga Competition. Kodansha IMC's Ceena reminds us that although the deadline for the competition was on May 31 2007, Kodansha will accept your work as long as it's postmarked by the deadline:

Please send your manga to Kodansha as soon as possible, enclosing the original postmark. We'll accept your work as a submission if it encloses the postmark by the due date.

Thank you for your interest in our competition. We're looking forward to reading your work!

We're now six months into 2007 and there have been a lot of news about new anime publications hitting retailers. From Isaac Alexander comes a brief overview of news from last year from where the last report left off.

Anthologies and Magazines 2006-2007

One addendum to the previous report: The report neglected to include two new publications that were starting at the end of 2005. The Monash Caulfield Anime Club in August 2005 premiered their first issue of Animaverick, Australia's first homegrown anime magazine covering anime, manga, and J-pop in the land down under. Across the Indian Ocean west of Australia, the company Xvolve Publishing premiered the first South African publication called Otaku Magazine. As of this time, both publications are only available in their host nations.

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Japanese news website Oh My News has an article that looks at what makes Global Manga a success, Manga Jouhou has the translation:

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Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso announced on Tuesday the creation of a "Nobel Prize of Manga" for foreign manga comic artists in hopes of spreading Japan's pop culture overseas.

Candidates for the new international manga award will be nominated by the general public as well as publishers from Japan and overseas:

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MangaBlog points out that the Japanese government will be bringing Keiji Nakazawa's manga Barefoot Gen to the Preparatory Committee For 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Barefoot Gen is about the story of a boy surviving and witnessing the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima after World War II.