Dengeki’s iM@S report is made of photo goodness - except Kugimiya Rie is missing
Dengeki Online had posted an indepth report of the The IDOLM@STER 3rd Anniversary Live. The report can be accessed here.
The report is full of photos, all the thumbnails are clickable for access to some pretty decent size pictures (VGA resolution) - except the ones that has Kugimiya Rie in it.
Now this may seem strange to some of you, but Japan has a concept of “Portrait Rights” (I seem to recall that some other countries such as Hong Kong has it too, but don’t quote me on that) - I won’t go into details, there’s a much better article about the concept here, but basically it boils down to that you are not allowed to use any pictures of any person without their consent because it is a violation of personal rights as well as property rights, this is one of the reason why if you visit Japanese blogs, especially those similiar to the Akiba blog varity, you would find the webmasters painstakingly mosaic out all the faces on the photos.
While I won’t go into the debate of whether this is a stupid law or not, what this law means is that in the Japanese entertainment industry it is actually possible for celebrities and their management to control exactly how, when and where their faces appears in most forms of media and publications, such as magazines, videos and websites. The fact that this report is missing pictures of Kugimiya Rie had caused all sorts of negative speculations amongst the diehard iM@S fans - because thus far, it’s only ever been anything related to iM@S that has received the block-out treatment, while everyone knows that Kugimiya Rie had no real issues posing for her other works. No one knows for sure what the true reason for this is - whether it is because Kugimiya Rie personally objects to it, that her management refuses to have her being associated with the iM@S franchise, or simply a failure of contractial negotiation, but the implication is that the chances of getting a non-butchered (considering the amount of performances she was in), let alone uncut, version of the concert on DVD is slim when even something as simple as a coverage report gets the big NG, which of course greatly disappoints all iM@S fans.
Count me in as one of those that is disappointed. :(
August 19th, 2008 at 16:01
Maybe she just had a hideous rash that day…
August 22nd, 2008 at 15:12
Man, imagine if Hollywood celebrities had those kind of rights. They’d have a field day in suing Paparazzi and Tabloids left and right.
Hey, is that also why security was super tight around Tite Kubo while he was here in San Diego? Trying to get a picture of him was practically impossible.
August 22nd, 2008 at 22:27
> Hey, is that also why security was super tight around Tite Kubo while he was here in San Diego? Trying to get a picture of him was practically impossible.
Yes, in Japan, taking pictures is almost NEVER allowed, this is how it works for them in Japan thus they simply take the same practice overseas in some cases. However most celebrities (and their management) when making their trips over usually loosens up a whole lot, especially at cons and all that where people are taking photos and videos and uploading them left and right without fear of prosecution because no such laws exists in most other countries. The chances of having a “two shot” (the engrish of having a photo taken with just 2 people in the picture) taken with your favourite idol is certainly achievable just by casually asking at overseas events, whereas in the case of Japan most otakus would literally kill for such an opportunity because it is almost impossible to get.
August 23rd, 2008 at 01:30
>>Man, imagine if Hollywood celebrities had those kind of rights. They’d have a field day in suing Paparazzi and Tabloids left and right.
I’m not familiar with the laws, but Paparazzi and tabloid-like magazines do exist in Japan.
August 23rd, 2008 at 05:10
> ヘイちゃん
The Paparazzi magazines here has to live solely on their “scoops”, since while a lot of the managements may not take legal actions, they will never give any exclusive interviews or news piece to these magazines.