Indeed, copyright has been a major issue involving fan sites on the Internet, and legal owners -- not just in anime/manga, but in film and television (Viacom/MSN vs Star Trek fansites to name one). As much as I respect the rights of the legal owners, I disagree in the way the copyright issue is being pursued by these companies -- as in the case of Viacom issuing 'cease-and-desist' ultimatums to sites set up by loyal fans.

Why Fan Sites Should Stay
Fan-sites are set up by those who are close to the programmes they love, and in doing so, not only do we sacrifice a lot of our time to share this love with others on the Net, we sometimes even fork out our own hard-earned cash (or pocket-money) to keep these sites running. For instance, I've to pay a monthly sum to have sites like Le Claire, The Mitsuru Adachi Homepage etc hosted -- all for the purpose of bringing anime/manga to more people.

And in doing so, we put a lot of our pride into our sites as well. Good fan sites don't just provide information -- they should be unique, and have a personality of their own, one which reflects whatever they are promoting. And because they're non-commercial, they come across as being more sincere. It's because of this that I'm against the decision by some companies (like Viacom and Disney) to bar visual and audio materials from fan sites. I'm also not for the idea of companies making fans use only materials, like images, prepared by the company. The way we promote anime/manga is through the show of our passion for them -- and how are we to do it effectively if every fan-site ends up looking more or less the same? Also, the standard of many of the official sites I've come across remains poor. [Digressing a little, in the case of MSN's Star Trek site, although it looks pretty impressive, the fact that surfers have to pay to access it defeats the purpose of 'spreading the gospel'. Besides, fans should be more than consumers on the Net.]

Suggestions for Guidelines to Follow
So what are the guidelines that I apply to a site like Le Claire? Here are a few, briefly:

• Fair Use should apply. So long as a fan-site is non-profit, a limited use of visual and audio materials should be acceptable. The term 'limited' refers to both quantity and quality of the materials used.

  For instance, making audio tracks available in MPEG quality is a no-no -- since that will discourage others from buying the actual product. An inferior audio quality will do well enough to serve as a teaser. The same applies to graphical images (esp image archives). Images and sounds are crucial in promoting anime/manga to new audiences, and should be make more accessible. However, web graphics should be kept at 72dpis as often as possible, since this makes them good enough for the Web (and as wallpapers on one's desktop) but inferior for printing.

• Site must be non-profit. The very core of our defence is that we're providing the copyright owners a service in the form of free marketing and publicity. To make money out of this is not only an infringement of these companies' copyrights, but bad ethics too. Advertising can be considered, but only to fund the running of the site.

• These copyrights must not be reflected in a negative light that would detract them from their original identities. This, I refer to malicious alteration to anime/manga characters and stories -- esp those who seem to enjoy in turning everything to hentai. I've seen quite a few -- hentai sites for Neon Evangelion Genesis, Tokimeki Memorial, Tenchi Muyo, Kimagure Orange etc. It's sick, and it does no favour to promoting anime/manga. Fan-fiction's fine, but again, the former applies.

What fans who put up anime/manga sites should understand is that the interest of the copyright owners MUSTN'T be threatened. After all, if these companies do badly financially, where else are the good anime/manga going to come from? The purpose is to set up an attractive site without affecting the sales of the actual products. There are no fast rules as to how this is done, and this is the challenge in coming up with a good anime/manga fan-site.

The Internet is rewriting a lot of print and broadcasting laws, and in lieu of this, a new approach has to be sought in this area. I really do hope copyright owners can work more closely with fans in the future with regards to this issue. The main motive might be different for both commerical organisations and fans, but ultimately, everyone's working hard to keep the anime/manga industries running. So why not work together instead?

Yukino Yoshi