marxy: what do you actually mean by the internet having had little impact in japan. I've been so far ignoring this statement everytime i've come across it, and yes you're the only person I've heard say it.

I'm no analyst but as far as my naive perception goes everyone i know is using email and the internet, and have been for a while. file sharing : everything from pink lady to aoki takamasa is there being shared (on servers based in japan), yahoo japan internet auctions looks as big and active as all of ebay put together and so forth. there's also an aged generation, hopelessly phobic in western countries, using computers in japan. (don't mean to sound nasty) do you mean it's had little impact on neomarxisme? do you mean japan's been already 'wired' before the internet revolution so the impact was less noticable than in the US or Korea. what do you mean?

Japan was very late to get to the basic structure of Internet activity, but you're right to point out that it's caught up very quickly. There was a time not so far back ago when a Japanese person would take weeks to respond to emails. (Also, in around '97, the only way you could download Jpop was from Korean sites.)

I do not, however, think that the Internet has become a massive media player in the same way as in America. Yes, the shukanshi steal a lot of stories from 2-ch, but blogs are generally not breaking stories in the same way. Also, young people in Japan are not the Net's primary users, which is one of the reasons you've seen a late development of "net culture."

I also feel that consumers - young ones in particular - use the media as a legitimizer more than a source of raw information, and the Internet cannot compete with magazines in that category. A website cannot recommend style tips, because it lacks the authority. This will no doubt change. But right now in America, the Internet is breaking bands a lot faster than the printed press can and this is very exciting to a lot of people.

So, perhaps the infrastructure is here in Japan, but I still see some huge psychological barriers. Traditionally, information has been very tightly controlled in Japan, and I don't see them powers-that-be really happy that the Internet naturally crushes that part of the status quo. Technological barriers may have been crossed but there are huge issues of social power and free information waiting to be confronted.

ok. thanks

so it's back to culture (or whatever you call it).

It's back to economic/political power structures and institutional inertia.

Ah, that was it. let me try to remember, , yes, everything can be reduced to that and outside of that there is nothing else. I'll try do my homework before returning here.
One more question, speaking of japan could that nothing be refered to using the japanese term that Rem Koolhaas dislikes using or is it a hard western nothing. You have to be clearer lest to the that nothing might take some profound meanings to the novice.

I wonder if "authoritiative" websites arent slowly emerging? Alot of the shows I've been to lately, the people seem to have gotten the info about the show not from Pia but from Mixi. Of course since my thing is so far removed from mainstream, maybe the impact I'm seeing is VERY limited in scope.

Mixi is an interesting thing to watch, especially if the scope becomes broader than the types who are on Friendster in America.

my lawyer advises me that a little bird tells me that japanese file-sharing is nearly non-existent by comparison. Lots and lots of research conducted by a little bird seems to imply that the best sources for TV, Movies, and Music from Japan are entirely english language, or chinese... The people capturing the raw episodes of tv shows, and ripping cds and dvds are very frequently JETs.
Apparently there was a Japanese "napster" for a while, a few years back, but was sued out of existence, and not replaced to nearly the extent that napster was in the west.

Something quite funny though... even at non-specialist bookstores, you can get guides to bittorrent (from the same publishers who advise you on how to get the most out of your keitai, or how to best spend 65 hours a week online gaming). There are a couple dozen suggested sources for torrents inside, including the big names of the biz, and a couple of korean sites (suggested for korean shows and music), but no japanese sources.

Yahoo auctions is indeed huge. A lot bigger than the last time I looked. I'm just perplexed that they charge membership fees for non-yahoobb users.

The transaction system is still not nearly as simple as it ought to be, but since japan is an electronic transfer country, actually paying is a snap...and shipping is generally pretty low.

Yahoo auctions is indeed huge

Anyone know why Ebay Japan folded so quickly?

Yahoo Auctions succeeds because Japan == consumerism.

shipping is generally pretty low

Aren't mail costs in Japan the highest in the world?

you can ship 20 kilos worth of crap (refrigerated if necessary) via the takkyuubin for about 800 yen. The low end is pretty high, but heavy stuff ships pretty cheap.

file-sharing is nearly non-existent

the concept of 'sharing' as known in the west is nearly non-existent!

Anyone know why Ebay Japan folded so quickly?
Yahoo Auctions succeeds because Japan == consumerism.

could you eleborate on this one? please, coz again i feel you're walking around with a pile of sticker labels in your pocket using them ad-lib.

here's an article from the time: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_23/b3735139.htm

huge psychological barriers

geeee___eeee____ee_e_e__eeee. i think you're talking about psychological barriers to becoming american. looking from a position where i can directly relate to the content yet positioned, ideologically, culturally and so forth somwhat off-side this is probably the best phrase i would use to describe most of the discussions carried on here. but is is necessary to use directly offensive or patronising language? (3 in a row)

just used this lovely piece of software http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18025 and all 20 servers i checked carrying 邦画 were located either in Milton australia or Marina del Ray US. whatever that means, it looks like a good offering for neomarxisme so i'll pay my due.

alin, don't know what you mean about "sharing"... most piracy in Japan is accomplished by renting or borrowing and copying cds and dvds.

(The tsutaya I visted recently had three seperate magazine-type books in the magazine section dedicated to DVDコピ. This is a video rental store mind you)

I always figured that the record companies get paid a share of the rentals - does anyone know if that is true? (Or perhaps they get paid a lot for the blank media sold in the rental shops?)

"sharing"

it's a complex one, deserves an essay (-:

most piracy in Japan is accomplished by renting or borrowing and copying cds and dvds.

in privacy.

i guess marxy would have different theories here but why would big brother make no sense in japan?

I always figured that the record companies get paid a share of the rentals - does anyone know if that is true?

I can check, but I think this assumption is correct. I'm not sure about the "piracy tax" on blank media.

My gut feeling has been for a long time that the media manufacturing lobby (TDK, etc.) had more political clout than record labels in the 80s (this is pre-music boom, you must remember), so that's why rentals were probably legally protected.

word on the street about japanese blank media taxes:

"In 1992, the "Compensation System for Digital Private Recording" was introduced. According to this system, those who make digital sound or visual recordings for personal use should pay compensation to the copyright owners. This compensation is added in advance to the prices of specified digital recording equipment (DAT, DCC, MD, CD-R, CD-RW), and specified recording media (DVCR, D-VHS, MVDISC, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM) (Japan Copyright Office 2001, 17; ibid. 24)."

a little inconclusive about cd-r media... but I think there is some sort of tax applied there.

Thanks for that info.

N.B. all blank media is taxed here. all the blanks I buy to back up my data or distribute the music I make, a little bit of corporate welfare goes to the JASRAC crowd.

N.B.2 There is no explicit legal protection nor prohibition for home recording. There exists no concept analagous to "fair use" under Japanese copyright law.

considering the above, I wonder how academic use of copyrighted materials is handled. Marxy can you enlighten us?