Copying CDs

Hey, it's been a while.

Today's topic: the myth that Japanese are extremely law abiding, even to a fault. But first a preface.

I don't think that the Japanese are bad people. It's just that I don't like and don't understand the need for the myth-building that goes on in and outside of the country that they are somehow unique. That, for example, unlike humans anyplace else on earth, Japanese people have this harmonious society where everybody gets along and never breaks a rule, like they're from another planet or something.

Here's an example.
A guy in my office, a Japanese guy, had an idea. I work in a language school and we have some texts that we made ourselves. His idea was to make up listening comprehension CDs and sell them to students. I actually think it's a decent idea. But I had my own take on things. These days it's very easy to copy CDs, and yes, like the rest of the planet, people in japan copy CDs and even download pirated music for free from the internet! Again, I'm not condemming them, just pointing out that the practice is widespread.) In fact, it is so widespread that any video rental shop in Japan usually also rents music CDs, and at the register are blank CD-Rs (marked "audio") used for all sorts of things like saving word processing files, pictures of family, and oh yeah, music. Everybody knows this. Most car stereos now advertise that they play copied CDs. (Old ones had trouble reading them.)

Ok, so the guy in my office said we should sell CDs to the students. I thought it was an ok idea, but wanted to point out that we should TAKE INTO ACCOUNT the fact that students will probably make their own copies for thier friends. I wasn't saying that we shouldn't do it, just that we might need to either charge more to recoup the loss, or charge less so there's no point in copying, or make it mandatory to buy them and so on. In short, we should factor in the ease of copying CDs when planning our own.

The guy went ballistic, like I went to an Irish^-American wake and said John Wayne was gay.

"What are you talkning about? Japanese people won't copy the CDs!"
"Well, I think there's a good chance they will."
"No, no, we'll just ask people to buy them and because we are the school everyone will do what we say."
"Yeah, but we've made things in the past and students copied them."
"No, no, no, maybe in America, sure, but Japanese people are law abiding and no one will do it." (see blogs about "America is lawless.")

In these kind of conversations I don't kow what to say because the other person has such a different reality than me. Maybe Japan itself is an alternate universe? It's like talking to your grandma who's convinced that you're dead uncle is coming to dinner tomorrow. So I said

"You know, a lot of people make copies of things. Music, movies, you know, it's common."
"No, no, we'll just tell the students that our CD is protected by international copyright laws and everybody will understand and obey it. There's no problem. If we have to we'll point out that if they make a copy they're breaking the law and will get arrested!"

Now if you're reading this in 2066 it may be hard to understand how funny what he said was but trust me, people don't get arrested for copying a homemade English conversation listening comprehension CD in the year 2005.

So I went to the nearby bookshelf.
"Look, here are CDs WE have that are copies.These are for professional texts." (We're just holding on to them for a friend, yeah...) heck lots of schools (not us) make photocopies of the texts which is technically a copyright violation. Schools and restaurants play background music, which even if it's from a purchased CD is technically a public broadcast and therefore illegal. But my point is that everyone, everywhere in japan -- JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE PLANET -- does it.

But my own example only furthered to strengthen his opinion. "Oh, no, " he said "You guys must have copied those CDs. Japanese people would never do it."

So there you go. Japan is a harmonious place that always follows rules.

To reiterate (re from the latin "to cover" and iteras "one's ass") I'm not saying that Japanese people are bad just that **they do the same things as the rest of us** but people refuse to believe it because they've got so much invested in keeping the mythology of uniqueness alive. Why I don't know. I think it wouild solve a lot of problems if we could just get over that.