FCBD snubs webcomics pub; Japan considers regulating interweb

Comic AG issue 72 should be out today at comic stores.  Give them a visit if you’re not snowed in, or still immobilized by bad eggnog.

+++ 

Missed it… CWR talks to Keenspot’s Chris Crosby regarding Diamond’s decision to exclude the company from Free Comic Book Day.

The need for standards is a given, and as a retailer-initiated promotion, it’s also rather understandable that the FCBD committee would be disinclined to support webcomics with their time and dollars.  Yet Keenspot *does* publish print titles for the direct market, so I’m not sure how they can be excluded on this basis.  (Should Marvel and DC also be cut from FCBD now that both companies have significantly expanded their online publishing presence?  I can’t imagine either not heavily touting their newfangled websites in their respective freebies.)

Of course, the other explanation for the snub is that this may simply be another case of “business as usual,” in a retail industry which many believe has never been shy to show its apathy for smaller publishers.  But hey, that’s business for ya.  And given the alternative possibility (abject terror in the face of the online menace), the thought is actually rather comforting.

+++

Via Slashdot… alternative news site Gyaku Media reports on legislation being mulled in Japan that would increase regulation on internet access, specifically illegal file sharing.

To stand on my soapbox while wearing my tin hat for a bit… the greatest deceit of the DMCA, one almost everyone bought into, is the shielding of service providers from liability for copyright violations.

Why?  Because it made piracy profitable for them.

Think about it.  All that portion of the DMCA does is remove culpability from major telecoms - the same ones who own/are owned by/are partners with big media corporations, and sold their broadband services to consumers on the promise of multimedia when few legal avenues for such content existed - and shift it to individuals, even though logically, top-down enforcement of copyright would be the most effective method.  I’ll even go out on a limb and say they are just as responsible, if not more so, for growing the problem of illegal downloading into an epidemic than any user or piece of software.  But guess who’s getting shafted with the big lawsuits?  You are.  Because, you know, big companies suing themselves into oblivion would be too much fun for the public to handle.

Yes, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the link above.  I just felt like saying it.

+++

This might or might not be true… according to this thread on AnimeOnDVD, Amazon Japan is no longer shipping adult items overseas.

Actually, that part isn’t news as it’s been their policy for a long time, except enforcement was spotty, and mainly confined to live action DVDs and novelty products (such as “sleeves,” for example).   And adult manga, even ones marked specifically as not available for overseas shipping, may be purchased with impunity.  However, in this instance the poster was unable to purchase an eroge magazine.

Does this mark a change in enforcement?  I’m not sure; the last shipment from Amazon JP I received which contained adult books was in November, on an order placed in August.  I’m tempted to test the system out…