Regarding the future of AKB48WrapUp

Tommy Kono October 28, 2012

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This is tommy, the writer at AKB48wrapup.

Because I express solely my personal thought here, please let me write in the first person singular here.

First of all, please let me share my thought on website like vid48 and hello project.

I expressed strong denial to these websites in my past posts or comments and it naturally made many people upset, or offended may be the right term, and formed a perception that I’m against illegal uploading, which is, as everyone knows, not a good things, but a sort of necessary evil as giving up all those videos means we, especially overseas fans, lose almost all means to enjoy AKB48 stuffs.

But please understand this. MVs that you’re watching, or DVD that you’re downloading (I’m so sorry if it’s not your case, and I’m sure, majority of fans do consider downloading, say 3 hour long AX footage a right conduct), are products that you’re supposed to pay money to enjoy.

But I embed tons of MVs from singles that haven’t even released yet. Which sure make you think I’m contradicting myself. So why I don’t agree people to share link to vid48 or hello project here on this website? This is because of copyright detection system that all major website have implemented. While you can see many illegally uploaded content on, for instance, youku or tudou, some of content you find are deleted due to requests from copyright holders. But this is not the case for small websites like vid48 or hello online. I don’t think there’re people who oppose the fact that copyright holders should have a right to delete content uploaded online illegally, and I basically think leaving a room for them to decide whether delete to content owned by them or not to play this game fair.

Of course there’s little difference between youtube and youku, as youtube has far bigger exposure to the mass if the same infringing material is uploaded illegally. But the fact that copyright holder can remove them immediately once when they want to do is nothing different, and you see many of deleted videos on Youku, etc. Plus, while TV programs are, of course, copyrighted by many stakeholders like TV company, distribution company, production company but downloading them is not considered crime because law state it’s not a paid-for copyrighted work, according to some legal experts downloading them is even legal until it’s commercialized, (and many Japanese people watch them on youku because some of programs are not aired in their areas) CDs and DVDs are direct source of their income for AKB48.

Imagine a little Japanese boy who ordered Request Hour Setlist online, but soon found the same footage in HD online, he may cancel the order or at least, feel frustrated or sad.

This is a QA regarding fansub anime where Arhur Smith, the President of GDH International, the parent company of the Gonzo anime studio discussed about the damage done to the anime industry in Japan by illegal downloads.

His intention here is to enlighten Anime fans through explaining how fansub has disrupted Japanese industry and hopefully aim at the situation where fans “voluntarily” control video sharing so as to minimize the damage to the industry.

Now the Japanese government is also now recognizing illegal file sharing as a major problem, and not only Anime distributors in north america, but and AKB48 also has recently gained their direct backing on various initiatives to deal with this problem.

When there’s no absolute answer to tell whether illegal video sharing contribute AKB48 or not, I think our safest choice is to put a premise that basically it’s a bad thing and we may better self-control ourselves to minimize the bad effect to the industry.

Let’s talk about the future of AKB48WrapUp.

We, as everybody may have already seen it, are updating news in Japanese now. Our aim is to make this website bilingual website of Japanese and English. I select topics that I think relevant to overseas fans, (in other words, I remove some news that are interesting because it have connotation of very Japanese things like famous skit of comedians), and post them in Japanese.

※There’s some misunderstanding that I’m translating articles on other website, but that’s not true. We sometimes publish the same topic way before others and sometimes way after others published them. As a matter of fact, I’ve rarely seen other fansites myself, and all these articles are what I picked up from the online forum.

Then, translators, now we only have one who can work on regularly but hopefully will see many raise their hands to join us, translate articles for English side of the bilingual website, (of course not necessarily everything has to be translated. This is intended to be a group translation where translation of one articles can be done soon if 20 people translate several sentences each). It will take time to implement to incorporate bilingual function as well as function that enables groups translation in very easy form.

To achieve this goal and revive AKb48WrapUp again, we’re willing to embrace people who kindly lend a hands for us. Translators, skilled website developers, as well as subbers, we welcome everyone to come.

Last but not the least, I’m sorry that I always offends you by my remark. I do sometimes sound offensive, and I truly regret about it and will try improving it. But please use imagination, how it would feel after spending 10 hours everyday to run this website, which is none other than for overseas fans, you’re called the most arrogant person who I’ve ever come across, don’t have a wrong idea, it’s not Japanese people but he is an arrogant and rude person by one oversea fans. And his comment are supported by several people. Honestly I’m quite offended by this remark, besides, he does come off the very rude person, potentially the rudest person I’ve ever come across, if I’m allowed to be truly honest.

But please don’t deny entire personality of me by only (or sometimes deliberately) looking at the one side of the coin. Me, who’ve been working on this website spending all of my sleeping time for months and, me, who offended you, it’s same me. Please don’t just to compliment me by looking at one side of me, nor don’t throw harsh words to me just by looking the other side of me. Please see me as a person, as one human being who has both good side and bad side. But if, after doing so, I still look an arrogant douche-bag to your eyes, it would bring no good if I still stay in overseas fandom. I will refran from being involved in overseas fandom in general anymore.

Please share your honest opinion in polite terms. I will be thrilled to read your comments.

Sincerely,

Tommy Kono.