Japanese Manga Artist Removes Copyrights: Good or Bad Idea?

Shuho Sato, a Japanese manga artist who won the Japan Media Arts Festival Manga Award for "Say Hello to Black Jack", is releasing the copyright on his work after selling over 10 million copies. So you can make a movie about it, plaster your fan art all over the Internet, make T-shirts, and pretty much do whatever you want involving "Say Hello to Black Jack", including make money off of it! You could even make your own manga using the exact same characters. (After September 15, which is soon.)

So I want to know what you think: Is this a good idea? Bad? Awful? Amazing?

Could you imagine if the author of, say, Bleach, released his copyright? The market for Bleach would explode. However, it could also make things a bit...confusing. After all, fans love to follow the original storyline. I mean, who likes filler in anime? Really? If it doesn't follow the manga, it's just no good. So what happens when people are allowed to create their own stories, whether written or illustrated, about Ichigo and all the other Bleach characters? Would Tite Kubo's manga still be the authority, or would we start to love another artist's interpretation better? And would that be such a bad thing?

On the other hand, take the Happy Birthday song. Did you know there's still a copyright on that song? So when you hear someone singing it on TV, you know that they paid for it. Yeah, that's right. Isn't that like paying to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star? It seems rather...miserly...doesn't it? I know a lot of people would agree that some people and companies take the whole copyright thing a little too far. Unfortunately, though, a lot of those complaining people would have no qualms about selling product that contains a copyrighted image on it --which is, by the way, illegal. So, when is a copyright considered a good and just thing, and when do people take it just a little too far? Ahhh, ethics. Laws. Why can't we all get along?

And personally, I believe we need law and order is this crazy world, and I believe copyright is a good thing. Although some people take it way too far, for now, it's in everyone's best interests. But, I certainly want to hear your opinion, too. :)

Well, I think Sato picked an interesting experiment, and I don't care if he's already sold millions of his manga. I say, Good for him! He probably deserves it! Everyone needs to make a living somehow. And now that he's collected his wages, he's chosen to do something really cool. It will be a lot of fun to see how this plays out.

Check out these articles for more information (and opinions!) on the topic:

• Award-Winning Manga Author Opens Up His Work To Be Used By 'Anyone, Anywhere, For Anything,' Royalty-Free
• Shuho Sato on the decision to publish on-line
• Manga Artist Lets Anyone Use His Work, Royalty-Free
• Award Winning Manga to be Freely Used by Anyone for Anything Anytime, Author Will Not Request Royalties