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Touhou and the concept of creative freedom


CountVonNumenor

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I was watching a video recently, and noticed a very interesting discussion in regards to what advantages a series could benefit from if the creator offers creative liberty to the fans to create content related to that franchise. In this thread, I will share two relevant comments on the issue, an argument and a counter-argument in regards to how good/useful this sort of liberty is.
 

In favor of creative liberty for the fans to create derivative works:

  • "Touhou Project is a case study if what the world would look like, if people weren't unreasonably possessive of their IPs. There's no other particular reason why Touhou in particular took off like this other than ZUN being extremely permissive regarding fan works. Because let's face it, Touhou games aren't phenomenal and the world and its characters aren't particularly interesting compared to everything else. It's fans that made it into what it is, because the original creator allowed it to happen. And it all benefited ZUN in the end - so it really begs the question, why many companies and authors will witchhunt every form of fanwork they encounter and in 99% of cases for profit fan works would be instantly shut down rather than treating them as free advertisement or, at the very least, trying to work out a deal with the people who work on them. I'm yet to see another franchise where the majority of commercial content is fan work that the IP holder has nothing to do it, but allowed its release regardless."
     
  • "A perfect example of what not stifling your fandom via endless copyright threats can do for you. ZUN has basically ensured immortality for the series. Even if he decides to drop the project, the fans will damn well still have oodles of ideas for a long time yet."
     
  • "I'm all but certain that companies nowadays are allergic to money. So many bad releases, so many shut down fan projects, and so much bad press with their audience. It's easy to just listen to the fans and get super popular off of the fandom, but then most companies would rather see it as "we're not getting money right now." Then what happens? Everyone gets mad, and no one buys their stuff. The most frustrating part is that the companies that do give their fans leeway show that it brings success by the boatload. But because the likes of Nintendo or Capcom or whoever can get away with it, other companies think that throwing out copyright strikes is the wave. They don't realize that they are successful despite copyright striking everyone, not because of it."

 

And in conter argument, or why big names/franchises may not want to be associated with fanworks: 

  • "There are several reasons if you're looking for an explanation as to why not everyone like fanworks (should also mention that ZUN isn't the most permissive as his guidelines can be fairly strict). Ultimately it's a person/company by person/company thing. Generally for companies, it usually comes down to either a desire to control the narrative of their works (I doubt Sega would've wanted their children's game mascot to be associated with furry porn for example) or because they don't need "free advertisement" and thus are able to view fanworks as infringement. An example of the last one would be Nintendo. Sure, you can find someone out there who got into a Nintendo game through fanworks or a meme or YTP but if we're being honest with ourselves, Nintendo doesn't need that promotion. Everyone and their grandparents know about Nintendo. Your meme about the new Mii game might drive some sales their way but for the most part, anyone who could get it (Switch owners), already knows about it and has likely already come to a decision about buying it. Bringing up Nintendo has a lot of baggage here but I'm just speaking loosely and not about a specific circumstance."
     
  • "I bring them up just because they're very Japan-focused and Japan doesn't have fair use.. As for creators, it's usually because they either don't want their art to be tainted or they don't want to be possibly loosing out on money or on opportunities that a fanwork may take away. Don't have many examples of this on hand but fanfiction is historically writhe with this kind of tension. ZUN's in a fairly special position since he's in Japan and can just make up his own rules about how his IP can be used, he's a part of the doujin scene and just turning a profit in that is an achievement (in other words, his mentality is different from a company), and he doesn't seem extremely concerned with the artistic consistency/canon of Touhou as much as other world builders may be. I do think that it's a bit dismissive to discount the unique aspects of Touhou though."
     
  • "ZUN isn't unique in his handling of fanworks even within his scene so there's obviously something that makes Touhou stand the test of time. Granted, when it comes to being okay with fanworks, he's in the same league as JK Rowling who became a billionaire or something off of books so there has to be some level of truth in how instrumental fan engagement can be as well."

 

Overall, what do you think about the issue at hand? Personal, I like the idea of giving the fans freedom to create their own works. Like the first argument says, that is basically free advertisement fot your series, which in turn may bring in more curious people to visit the source material. This might be a very naive and optimistic view though, given how for example in the case of Touhou, many people (most according to some) will see the the fan-made content, but will only stop there without actually getting to check out the source material and official works. Which  guess would bring a fair point to both sides of the discussion...

 

This discussion can be expanded to other franchises as well, and I could talk about other series too as in my years going from one fandom to another, I have seen the whole spectrum of approaches companies and IP owners decided to take in regards to what the fans are producing (Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, BattleTech/MechWarrior, Valve and their games). 

Edited by CountVonNumenor
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As I reflect on the thoughts that the reading of these comments brought forward, I am worried it might diverge too far from the intention of thread. Nonetheless, for the sake of engagement:

By my understanding, copyright as a concept was instituted with the intent to encourage creativity. By protecting the ability of the creator to profit off his work, there was a greater motivation for someone to create. However, this protection was not intended to be infinite; after a period of time, copyright would expire, and others would be free to use the IP as they liked. The justification for this goes back to the nature of human creativity, in that it is always derivative; no idea is ever ex nihilo. Since human creativity is always inspired by something experienced or learned, no one can claim exhaustive ownership over their creation. Consequently, as the creator takes inspiration from the creations around him, he should not expect to restrict the inspiration others take from his creation.

This is far from a complete analysis, however; it does not consider the larger topic of motivation in creation (i.e., why does a person create), only its attempted stimulation.

Edited by Ken Hisuag
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TTT

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I believe that a majority of touhous success came not just from the leniency to fanworks, but to the lack that touhou has.  like you said earlier, the world and its characters are not the most interesting when compared to a lot of other things. One thing that i have to point out, however, is that there was a lot of potential to the world and characters. there is a lot of interesting things to say about them, but the games have never put the most effort into showing any of this. fans saw this, and it made them want to fill in these gaps that they had. not to mention that the character designs are great, and the music is phenominal, especially giving each character a unique theme, and so it made them more memorable. of course, all that was simply a flicker to the flame, the creative freedom and such fueled it into a wildfire that is now called touhou project.

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I think that what makes a fandom more creative than another is when you have well created (in term of personality) characters, a vast universe and of course, a good and coherent story. As in the example of Undertale, the characters have a unique personality, and then, we know there was something between humans and monster but it was never detailed what was it and so the fan could imagine it. To make short, the stimulation of fandom's creativity relay on the masteries of a franchise, if everything was given (character's background, possible and impossible thing...) the fandom cannot do anything else than some suspicious Deviantart fanart (eww, Sonic fanart on Deviantart 😫)

 

(well, i'm too lazy to write something intelligent... 🥲)

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Sorry, I've been meaning to comment on this thread for a while, but you know, very busy life at the moment. Anyway, as both a Touhou fan and a fangame creator myself, it probably goes without saying that I feel attacked by the statement "Touhou games aren't phenomenal and the world and its characters aren't particularly interesting compared to everything else" I'm pro-fanworks. If I were to create my own IP and mark my words, this will happen one day I would want people to be able to express creative freedom with it, but at the same time, I have to admit that going to the lengths ZUN does of not only allowing, but possibly encouraging commercialisation is a scary thing to think about; most copyright holders, even indie devs, would not be happy with others profiting off their IP and I can understand why. It's hard for me to put into words why, but Ken makes a good point about the purpose of copyright being to protect the creator's ability to profit off their work. I suppose the fear is that commercial fanworks will cannibalise the sales of your own works, even if it somehow hasn't turned out that way for ZUN. I don't know if I could confidently say "you can sell your fanwork whatever it is, and at any price" like ZUN does, I honestly feel like I'd err more on the side of prohibiting for-profit fanworks.

It's a difficult dilemma to unravel, but all that being said it's only commercialised fanworks I feel iffy about, I'm completely OK with not-for-profit fan creations of any kind and I would like to make an effort to encourage them.

I like the stance SEGA has on fangames, they don't allow them to be sold but other than that they're super chill about it. People here seem to be ripping into Sonic a bit here but honestly I feel like SEGA deserve more credit for that (in general, not just this discussion here). After all, it's how we got Sonic Mania.

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In the case of Nintendo, the counter-argument feels... I dunno, a little weak? If they're coming from the angle of the company not needing our "free advertisement" as to why people make fangames of their IPs, it feels a tad disingenuous. I'm under the impression that Nintendo fangames exist because fans want to create something the company wouldn't give them to begin with.

However, I do agree that fanworks can sometimes warp the perspective one might have of a franchise/IP, so a company issuing a C&D to preserve their intended image is understandable (even if I personally don't agree with most cases of Nintendo's takedowns). I'm glad that ZUN doesn't seem to really mind what kind of things fans create.

Fan content has kept Touhou alive all these years, and I hope this freedom to create isn't going away anytime soon.

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/17/2022 at 7:48 AM, Eulogous said:

In the case of Nintendo, the counter-argument feels... I dunno, a little weak?

Please keep in mind, that is not my argument. The whole discussion has been copied from a reply chain I saw at the time, and anted to share it here. As for Nintendo itself, I really feel that move to put so many restrictions on the creation of fan content. It worked well with Touhou, why not allow it happen in the case of Nintendo as well. And if they worry about a possible ruination of their image due to the content created by fans, it is not as if they are already creating various nasty things. 

Spoiler

(a little parenthesis about unholy things made baised on someone else's IP, apparently the creator of the Nier games not only allows the creation of lewd content, but he actually encourages it and personally asks the fans to create more; this sure was...interesting to learn out of all possible things)

Ok, now for the rest...

On 9/17/2022 at 7:48 AM, Eulogous said:

I'm glad that ZUN doesn't seem to really mind what kind of things fans create.

I think this may also come from the fact ZUN wants to keep his series as an indie project, as far as possible from any corporations (even though we may have hiccups every now and then like whatever is going on with the big guys behind Touhou LW, but I digress). Perhaps this free sprit is what made it possible to have such a vast amount of fan-made content based on the IP, and be something the creator is perfectly fine with. 

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The nier bit is interesting, but yoko taro in general is a strange developer too. He basically made his older games (drakengard) in an attempt to make them as "edgy and mature" as possible, with them having to put him on a bit of a leash for the nier series. I do think that the free spiritness of touhou is probably what contributed a lot to its success in fanworks, kinda like how undertale did here in the west.

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My thoughts on the matter are pretty mixed, since discussing the ethics of copyright enforcement is (just barely) a bit more complicated than "fans good" and "company bad". As Ken pointed out, copyright laws were established to promote creativity by ensuring that creators get inherent protection for their works, their sales, and their distribution. But the law was written to suit the times it was written in and likely gave no consideration to how society and technology would change in the future. Many people would agree that copyright law as a whole could do with a good once-over, and I'm one of them.

In no particular order, I wanted to go over some of my thoughts on the many different points that have been brought up in the thread.

  • "It's free advertising" is the "I can pay you in exposure" of big business, and I'll never understand how people can praise one and condemn the other. Fanworks, by nature, strip a creative entity of control over its property; the social interpretation of said property will account for whatever that fanwork adds to it. And that can be a huge boon; plenty of smaller projects could benefit from that kind of advertising. But it can also backfire. Someone starts selling a fanwork that's eerily similar to yours, and now your property is in competition with theirs. Or your brand get bogged down by negative reception to offensive fanworks. Now you're losing money, and you had every opportunity to stop it. Then you've got a corporate giant, with stakes in the millions or even billions of dollars, and you have to ask "Is the risk worth it?"
  • In spite of everything I just said, I am 100% in favor of companies being permissive with fan projects, and for the most part, companies are. When people complain about companies stifling fan creation, they're not talking about "companies;" they're talking about Nintendo. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo has terrible business practices and deserves every bit of criticism it receives. But for the most part, fanart, mods, animations, music remixes and the like are left alone, or even encouraged. Maybe if I was more legally literate, I could elaborate on what makes certain fanworks okay while others get lawyered to death, but I'm not and I can't. But I do very much dislike this narrative that "all companies are evil" and "fanworks are all being squashed under the iron boot" and "fans aren't allowed to be creative." It's nonsense. These are isolated incidents from a select few very infamous companies.
  • In my brief delve into the legality behind fanworks, I repeatedly came across a word that both carries a lot of relevance to this issue and is quite possibly the most badass Scrabble move you can make: Antragsdelikt. It's basically a term used for a crime that cannot be prosecuted without permission from the victim of said crime. Copyright infringement falls under this concept's equivalent in Japan. As has been stated earlier in the thread, Japan doesn't have a Fair Use law to protect fanworks; effectively, fan projects are only "legal" because the owner of the works they derive from haven't declared them "illegal." Truly, one of the "Well yes, but actually no" moments of all time. Luckily, Japan has one final line of defense to protect these works; society. Japanese culture has been molded for decades around this idea of protecting doujins. It's practically a staple of its culture, even being officially recognized by its politicians. Even if fanworks don't have a proper legal defense to their existence, IP owners are aware of the severe social backlash they would receive for frivolously enforcing copyright laws on fan creators, which keeps them at bay and allows Japan's current doujin market to thrive.
  • But this is America, dammit! How am I supposed to enjoy my cheeseburger and baseball game if I'm not suing someone?
    So, globalization is great and awesome and I love that people are able to connect with virtually anywhere else in the world with a few key presses, but it is a legal and cultural nightmare. And now we have major companies that operate in multiple nations under different legal systems and cultures, and I don't wanna be a lawyer. I don't think my sanity can handle it. But the fearful question does remain and keeps doujin fans up at night: as the world becomes more and more globalized, whose laws and cultures will come out on top, and what does that mean for ideas that only worked in their own little bubble?

 

  • And now we can get around to Touhou talk. Like, yes, obviously fan content is a major contributor to Touhou Project's success; probably even the biggest. But given everything I've learned about Japan's doujin scene and the legal environment surrounding fanworks, I can't say I believe that it's as simple as "ZUN doesn't be a dick to fans = more beer money." I can't back it up, but you'd have a hard time convincing me that there's a bigger singular doujin community out there than Touhou. But why? If doujin creators are so encouraged to create fanworks without fear of legal repercussion in Japan, why did Touhou rise so far ahead of its contemporaries? I believe there's an entire world of difference between making a community in which fans can create their own content and a community in which they're encouraged to.
  • ZUN isn't a totally free spirit; he's got his rules, lenient as they may be, and he does enforce them. In particular, there's one rule that I believe has an enormous impact on the way fan creators interact with his IP: He forbids people from using his in-game assets wholesale in their fanworks. If you want to make your own Touhou fan project, everything from the art to the music has to be your own. But character likeness, the setting, general patterns, and music composition aren't included in that. You can use his characters (in your own art) and give them their iconic themes (that you created yourself). Now a hypothetical fangame turns from a romhack with rearranged assets and palette swaps to a built-from-the-ground-up original game, with original art and music the creator can call their own. Recreating ZUN's work is the focus, not reusing it.
  • If I might copy nightsedge561's homework briefly, Touhou, within the video games themselves, doesn't have a whole lot for the casual player to latch onto. My experiences with the canon games have been largely unimpressive. Characters aren't given a whole lot of dialogue; just enough to give a basis of personality and motivation before I pichuun them into oblivion. Hell, the inciting incident is only given out in a text blurb when you select your character. If you jump straight in like I usually do, you don't even know the whole story on what's going on. Blessed as we are for having the community English patch, some of the dialogue just can't be saved. Getting the full scope of the game's story is much easier from reading a wiki or watching a video explaining it. Yeah, I don't think these are great qualities, but they are perfect opportunities for dedicated and creative fans to come in and start filling in gaps. Touhou is rough around the edges and certainly not accessible for the average person, but fans have gone above and beyond to smooth the IP out into something that anyone can enjoy and see the nugget hidden within.
  • Not to discredit the obviously hard work that ZUN has put into his games, but the timing of when Touhou took off can't be a coincidence. EoSD came out in 2002, PCB in 2003, IN in 2004, and PoFV in 2005. This is undeniably the most iconic era of Touhou; nobody aware of Touhou doesn't know about these games. And what should release in 2005 and 2006? The launch of NicoNico and YouTube. Obviously, online videos and video sharing existed before these services, but these two were massive game changers in sharing video content to audiences around the world. You can't convince me that the rise of these services didn't have any impact on spreading the name of Touhou around the world while it was at the peak of its popularity.

In conclusion, no, I don't think Touhou Project is a textbook example of how allowing fan creativity brings about success. While its success is undeniable, I think it's the result of a lot of different factors (some discussed, some not) that can't be replicated by just not enforcing copyright laws. Nonetheless, Touhou has gotten to where it is today thanks to the many, many, many, many... many efforts of some of the most dedicated fans I've ever seen come from any community. It's honestly insane how much content has come from such humble beginnings, and I hope it never dies out.

This post has been brought to you by the letter S for Sleep, which is what I'm going to do now that I've fried my last remaining brain cells writing all this.

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Shanghai Doll knows what you've done.  162257545___alice_margatroid_and_shanghai_doll_touhou_drawn_by_nekoguruma__abeeeaa945645f8ecfdbbe81a2857a13(5).jpg.6da63ce849c93f73625172cb4a291f2a.jpg  I hope you're proud of yourself.

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