In 2005 China's cell phone e-book market was estimated to be over 720,000 (around 92,000 USD) Yuan. According to reports, with the rapid growth of anime and manga in China, this year the market could be well over 31,660,000 yuan (around 4,000,000 USD), and in 2010 over 624,000,000 yuan (around 80,000,000 USD).

Source: Tech-ex

There will be a meeting between JASRAC (Japanese Society for the Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) and YouTube Executives.

Last week JASRAC sent YouTube a letter requesting the website to step up their anti-piracy regulations. YouTube responded by saying they plan on meeting the demands, and "will come to Japan to discuss these issues with [JASRAC]."

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In his latest Flipped column, David Welsh looks at popular manga released in France.

Japanese Studies K.U.Leuven's blog Japanese Popular Culture has posted an article regarding the drafting of a new classification system for new manga collections.

The Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS) and the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) have released a report estimating the damage caused by the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program Winny to the Japanese entertainment industry.

A test was conducted on October 10th, where Winny activities were closely monitored during a 6-hour time period. According to the report, there are currently over 210,000 Winny users illegally pirating anime, manga, games, softwares and music, causing over 9.5 billion yen worth of damage to the Japanese entertainment industry.

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From Spubba the Mad's LJ comes a list of Western comic industry pay rate figures. Tina Anderson, creator of Iris Print's BL one-shot Only Words, talks about how this figure cannot be applied to manga artist.

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) has released an updated report (PDF) on the status of the Japanese Publication Industry. According to the report, sales figure of manga tankoubon (a compilation volume) has increased 4.2%, while manga anthology sales has decreased by 2.6% compared to last year. As a result the entire manga market experienced a net decrease of 0.5% (around 502.3 billion yen).

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Akihabara is known around the world for its otaku culture and maid cafes. Not only is Akihabara a hot tourist spot, but it also serves as a place for geeks and otakus to "heal their spiritual wounds."

A few days ago, a shocking event took place in this otaku heaven that sent tremors throughout the otaku world - a maid was threatened, and subsequently molested, by a man. This incident is now being called "Maid Hunting," named after the controversial "Otaku Hunting" event that took place earlier this fall in Akihabara.

According to reports, around 7:00pm on October 17th in front of the JR Akihabara Station, a 18 year old girl dressed as a maid (who was handing out flyers) was approached by a man. The man asked, "Are you a college student? Where do you work?" The maid was then asked to bring the man to the maid cafe she worked at. When they were climbing the stairs of the maid cafe, the man suddenly took out a small knife, and proceeded to forcefully molest the maid's lower body.

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Recently a figurine of Saber (from Fate/stay-night) given away as a "hand-made collector's edition item" by a Chinese comic magazine called "Donghua Jidi" (Anime Base) became a hot topic of discussion in both China and Japan. The cause of the debates was the figurine's ugly appearance.

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On September 20, Impress R&D's Internet Life Laboratory released the result of their 2005 analysis on the Japanese electronic manga market in (04/2004 - 03/2005). According to the report, the electronic manga market was worth 3.4 billion yen in fiscal year of 2005. The electronic book market was worth 9.4 billion last year, with the electronic manga market occupying 36% of the entire market.

The investigation was based on two reports, "Electronic Book Business Analysis Report 2006" and "Electronic Manga Business Analysis Report 2006," both from Internet Life Laboratory. The reports study the rapidly increasing trend of the electronic book market.

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