Discussion on the official fan content guidelines

[CountVonNumenor]

Recently, I was quite curious to see what are the regulations when it comes to the creation of Touhou fan content. Not long after, I have found the rule list on the Touhou Yomoyama News website, and so I wanted to share them here as a bit of random trivia. I am not sure to what degree are those regulations respected by fan content creators as a whole, but I honestly find them interesting. If there is anything you find interesting, feel free to share your thoughts.

 

Spoiler

Guidelines for Touhou Project Fan Creators
(UPDATE：November 10, 2020)

In short, you may simply use your common sense if you're an individual or group (as opposed to a legal person) creating Fan Content (stuff you make based on Touhou Project) just for fun. However, your Fan Content has to comply with the following rules:

Your Fan Content should always have:

• A clear note that your Fan Content is a fan work based on Touhou Project.

Your Fan Content should NEVER have:

• Anything that means to harm Touhou Project's reputation.
• Anything that infringes upon other intellectual property.
• Anything that means to mistake your Fan Content as one of the official Touhou Project titles.
• Anything that is extracted from official Touhou Project games.
• Ending scenes from official Touhou Project games.
• Anything that means to advertise personal beliefs beyond the bounds of fiction.
• Other Touhou Fan Content without the creator's permission.
• Excessive sexual content that is considered unlawful.
• Anything that promotes hatred against individuals or groups.
• Though not relevant to Fan Content, posting or modifying photos of ZUN himself without ZUN's permission is prohibited.

Distribution
In general, your Fan Content may only be distributed through platforms where:

• you can find official Touhou Project contents
• they are licensed or permitted by ZUN

Examples (includes but not limited to):

• Local doujin events in Japan
• Local doujin shops in Japan
• Events are explicitly permitted by ZUN
• Small home business (physical media only)
• BOOK☆WALKER
• Touhou Digital Music Distribution
• Local events with admission fees on an individual scale

Browser games and mobile games can only be released as free-to-play games. Other forms of monetizations such as in-app advertisement and ad removal as an in-app purchase are allowed. Fan-made video content, including let's play videos, may be uploaded through video-sharing platforms alike. If you have obtained an explicit license from Team Shanghai Alice, please clarify such an association in your Fan Content. You are solely responsible for any troubles caused by your Fan Content. Under no circumstances will Team Shanghai Alice be held responsible for any damages. If you are a legal person creating Fan Content as a business activity, please contact us. Disclaimer The intention of this guideline is to provide fan creators with a brief understanding of dos and don'ts in a lenient manner. We do not answer any questions from individuals or groups regarding these guidelines and Fan Content policy. We may contact you directly if we consider your Fan Content to be a serious violation of our guidelines. We reserve the right to update this guideline without any notices.

About previous guidelines

Previous guidelines provided by ZUN are still considered as effective. For details that are not included in this guideline, please consult previous guidelines linked below.

• Relevant Pages of Team Shanghai Alice's Fan Content Policy (Mr. Takker's website)
• Details regarding "One-day Permission" and business activity (published on Dec. 10th, 2008)
• Contact Form for Legal Person (published on Feb. 14th, 2011)

Special thanks to Mr. Takker for hosting Touhou Project creator guidelines ever since.

I have decided to use a spoiler just so it would not be too much to scroll, or in case someone just wants to skip to the thoughts sharing part. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by CountVonNumenor

[Sir I]

11 minutes ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Anything that means to advertise personal beliefs beyond the bounds of fiction.

What does it mean?

[Juuni]

9 minutes ago, Maniac Privateer said:

What does it mean?

Don’t make your touhou fan content a political push. Basically, touhou ain’t for telling people what to believe in any sense

[Sir I]

1 minute ago, Juunimeta said:

Don’t make your touhou fan content a political push. Basically, touhou ain’t for telling people what to believe in any sense

Ah, I see. Thanks

[Eulogous]

17 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Anything that means to mistake your Fan Content as one of the official Touhou Project titles.

This makes me think of all the fan shmups with nonsensical names in the style of official ones lol. Some of the teams I've been on during fan projects go flipping through a thesaurus for inspiration. Not a bad thing, but kind of funny in a way.

 

17 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Ending scenes from official Touhou Project games.

This has always been the oddest rule to me. I'm not entirely sure what to interpret from it. Is it a thing to prevent spoilers? Some of the games need to have a specific ending to explain some things in another game. Are we not allowed to talk about Sanae's UFO ending, where it's revealed that the Moriya Shrine gods helped build Myouren Temple that appears in Ten Desires?

Does this also mean someone can't write an AU fanwork derived from a Bad Ending?

 

17 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Anything that means to advertise personal beliefs beyond the bounds of fiction.

I think probably only the Western fanbase would have this issue.

 

17 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Excessive sexual content that is considered unlawful.

I am absolutely certain that this rule in particular is followed the most. 100%.

 

17 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Though not relevant to Fan Content, posting or modifying photos of ZUN himself without ZUN's permission is prohibited.

Spoiler

 

[CountVonNumenor]

33 minutes ago, Eulogous said:

This has always been the oddest rule to me. I'm not entirely sure what to interpret from it. Is it a thing to prevent spoilers? Some of the games need to have a specific ending to explain some things in another game. Are we not allowed to talk about Sanae's UFO ending, where it's revealed that the Moriya Shrine gods helped build Myouren Temple that appears in Ten Desires?

Does this also mean someone can't write an AU fanwork derived from a Bad Ending?

I have a feeling this rule about "no spoilers" has always been up. Actually, it was one of the first thing I was taught about when I discovered Touhou. And yes, fans seems to be strictly reinforcing this rule as well. even if the game in question may be 20 years or older by now. Most recent such example I have seen was when I was watching AspreyFM play various games in the main series. He was always covering the screen when the ending appeared, and everyone said that if you show the ending, you are basically going to get a copyright strike or treated it like you are going to break an actual rule from the Criminal Code.
 

37 minutes ago, Eulogous said:

I am absolutely certain that this rule in particular is followed the most. 100%.

Oh, most definitely. Our series of interest totally does not have a lot of infamy surrounding it due to the sheer amount of content or the legality of some of that content. Absolutely not, this rule is reinforced by the book by the community (especially the Japanese/East Asian one)... 
 

39 minutes ago, Eulogous said:

God

 

Outside the rule about "no ending spoilers", to what degree do people actually respect the official guidelines?

[Eulogous]

14 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Outside the rule about "no ending spoilers", to what degree do people actually respect the official guidelines?

From my experience, it seems to depend on whether or not the fan content is being sold for money. If not, the guidelines are at best a suggestion really. Touhou Fangame Jams I take part in are shared and played through Itch.io, and I'm pretty sure the official games can't be found there.

Overall, most people do follow the guidelines.

Even if you are technically breaking them, if you manage to fly under the radar you'll be fine. I purchase the newer games on DLSite, and seeing all the content that obviously violates a... certain stated guideline that are allowed to be sold there tells me there is no real strict enforcement of it either. Now if you start turning heads, you are painting a huge target on your back (also crowdfunding a Touhou fan project is likely going to get you struck down).

[CountVonNumenor]

I was actually quite wondering... If you're from the West, and want to make Touhou fan ci tent, how are you going to monetise it afterwards? Like for example a comics/manga creator (let's not get though into the semantics of whether a comic book made in manga style, but outside Japan, should be orbit considered a manga). The ZUN rules imply that you can only sell your products at specific events (see the list) that only take place in Japan. How do Western creators do it? Do they just share everything for free on social media? I've always been curious if people like RichaadEB or YaboiMatoi actually earn anything from their fan arrangements, or do they just do it for fun. Or overall, how does the creation and monetisation of Touhou fan-made content work in this part of the world?

[Eulogous]

8 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

I was actually quite wondering... If you're from the West, and want to make Touhou fan ci tent, how are you going to monetise it afterwards?

For a game, you simply release on a platform that also has an official Touhou game being sold there. Easiest example is Steam, as there are tons of fangames that have a price tag attached to them. Another one is DLSite, where I buy Touhou games from (I know it's only TH13 onwards, but I've had an account there for a while, and I don't like booting up Steam all the time), and just like Steam, there's a ton of fangames available for sale.

 

Console fangame availability would've been something I thought would breach the guidelines without explicit permission, but then Antinomy of Common Flowers (TH15.5) happened. That fighting game is an official Touhou game, and is available on PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, which would expand the platforms to sell fangames on by proxy.

10 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

Like for example a comics/manga creator

Written fanworks can be also found on DLSite, and official manga is sold via Amazon JP and other avenues. Often times, you'll see things like Fanbox/Patreon for things like fanart or manga, but that is monetizing the access to the content and not selling that content, or is a way to support the creator and not outright buying it.

 

11 hours ago, CountVonNumenor said:

The ZUN rules imply that you can only sell your products at specific events (see the list) that only take place in Japan.

Not really, those are just examples more attuned to the intended audience of Touhou.

Remember, the preceding line was:

On 8/2/2023 at 8:32 AM, CountVonNumenor said:

Distribution
In general, your Fan Content may only be distributed through platforms where:

• you can find official Touhou Project contents

Also:

On 8/2/2023 at 8:32 AM, CountVonNumenor said:

Examples (includes but not limited to):

The qualifier statement has the phrase "but not limited to" in it.

 

A lot of Western creators just do things for fun. Also, it can be intimidating to think of monetizing your fan content over here, because of companies like Nintendo that go out of their way to quash fan content they deem harmful to their brand and public image. Overthinking it further can lead to some not making even free fanworks over here because of that overhanging fear.

[CountVonNumenor]

On 8/3/2023 at 12:19 PM, Eulogous said:

This has always been the oddest rule to me. I'm not entirely sure what to interpret from it. Is it a thing to prevent spoilers? Some of the games need to have a specific ending to explain some things in another game. Are we not allowed to talk about Sanae's UFO ending, where it's revealed that the Moriya Shrine gods helped build Myouren Temple that appears in Ten Desires?

Coming back to this with a very fresh instance. Well, it looks like the "no game end spoilers" rule is still heavily reinforced. Right now (or rather said a few minutes ago) I saw AspreyFM play Touhou 19 (he's finally doing it), and he keeps hiding the screen or censor it whenever a game ending is shown.