Excepted the later fixed case about
(https://i.imgur.com/u7T9XXk.jpeg)
In early 2018, Japanese Touhou fan Yatabe (https://x.com/yukkuriyuyuco) decided to open a bar called U.N.Owen (U.N.逢縁 (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen)), and it was scheduled to start business on February 2. The store started a trial operation on February 2, and the number of fans visiting exceeded the owner's expectations, but it was closed due to insufficient food inventory and other reasons (https://x.com/mackerel_server/status/959358241384878080). The store officially opened on February 9 (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen/status/960886253368430593). The bar used a lot of Touhou (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen/status/959375075139964928) stuff (https://x.com/MORI_th109/status/961893487225352192), called themselves a "Touhou Bar" (東方バー) and used Touhou (https://x.com/19z_u/status/962462916271267840) for promotion (https://x.com/asunoyuumi/status/961955543895060480). That is why some people questioned whether the Touhou theme bar would violate the rules. On February 11, Yatabe announced that he would temporarily close the store (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen/status/962745105378459648) and denied his bar's relationship with Touhou (https://x.com/yukkuriyuyuco/status/962726436900560898). On February 17, Yatabe stated on Twitter that ZUN prohibits the use of Touhou as store promotion (https://x.com/yukkuriyuyuco/status/964713374540943361), and stated that they would remove Touhou elements and operate as an ordinary bar (https://x.com/yukkuriyuyuco/status/964714327814029312). Yatabe directly violated the rules, that is why everything happened, and a lot of fans discussed that topic (http://blog.livedoor.jp/coleblog/archives/52102657.html). But Yatabe didn't give up. After that the store opened again (https://x.com/yukkuriyuyuco/status/966234138096189441) and... they remained Touhou (https://x.com/ddr_das/status/965888957387911168) goods (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen/status/990179101741694976) (like Chasho Yamazato), continued to do Touhou food (https://x.com/bar_u_n_owen/status/971763239724855296) by request (https://x.com/Etopen_Seamii/status/971707270135349249) (technically not prohibited) and used images by visitor for promotion (technically not prohibited too). So they decided to stay in the gray zone and continue their activities, just without naming things their names.
Even though U.N.Owen Bar was not very successful, it showed the borders of allowed activities. Other stores noticed that and they became more open about their Touhou-related stuff and activities. For example, Grep Shop that before the incident were sometimes mentioning that they had Touhou (https://x.com/Grep_Shop/status/982191139582177282) stuff (https://x.com/Grep_Shop/status/982192223075713024), after it they we saying about Touhou stuff openly (and use Touhou for advertising their online shop (https://x.com/GrepNetshop)).
(https://i.imgur.com/4JQl4h7.jpeg)
U.N.Owen Bar was a very serious step in this long series of events. After this a lot of things stopped being unthinkable. Many changes happened using the same mechanism, so it is important to understand how it works. On one hand fans can use this mechanism to reduce the limitations they have, on another hand companies can do that too. So even though it may be good for fans it can also increase the commercialization of Touhou as a series.
But from what is explained and is presented they are,and meant to remain in the futurewere "temporary commercial collabs... indirectly authorized by ZUN/Junýa Ota and directly authorized by the HSW,which is in turn authorized by the former"?
Are there deeper mentality and trend-shifting limitations brewing "around that Authorized and Temporary Grey Areas" that would" make them to a greater degree more susceptible to them being further reduced and in danger of slipping into ' the Dark-Grey of not-so-Temporay,ambiguosly Authorized,not-easily-Fixed,Immoderate commercialization about Touhou derivates and indirectly about Touhou at the source"?
Hmm, haven't heard of this particular bar "incident" per se, but I'm vaguely familiar with a much older incident that is not unlike it, specifically around the time where the touhou boom was still strong and a doujin retail store (White Canvas, I believe) decided that they are gonna sell their own Touhou derivative products too (as anime goods ? it's been SO LONG I don't remember the exact details), with very clear touhou advertisement in their stores. Team ZUN took issue and it was stopped. It's bigger in scope, but basically, we have this non-ZUN affiliated business that is basically trying to do their own touhou thing but in the wrong way. Imo rather than being a defining case, it's just a typical case of someone overstepping their boundaries due to misunderstanding of the established rules.
In the bar's case, I think the main issue is the use of Touhou as a main means of advertisement, which may lend to it being mistaken for an official initiative on ZUN's part (arguably goes against the guideline part that say not to be mistaken for official stuff) while not being a licensed business that may use the IP for business.
On the guidelines and the "gray zones", imo the problems stems from people not correctly identifying where the boundary lies : which practices are okay and which ones steps into the realm of commercial ?
At any rate, as far as Touhou works goes in regard to the guidelines, I think the hierarchy goes somewhere like this : guideline violating works < guideline compliant works < ZUN approved works < Licensed works
Guideline violating works : self evident with obvious consequences, these are works that are not in line with the doujin spirit as seen by ZUN (and the community)
However, it's not like violating the guidelines lead to a swift and mechanical response from ZUN's team : there are for example touhou endings uploaded on youtube, fanworks that features excessive gore and cockroaches, supposedly not touhou works with non-touhou named characters that very obviously look like 2hus (cookie), even the use of 2hus for, uh, rather unsavory and politically incorrect statements or illustrations on some suspicious part of the web and twitter.
In general, the non compliant works that get handled with seriousness are ones where the question of monetization is handled in a way that goes against ZUN's conception of how doujin should be, or also some whose identity and presentation may lend themselves to being confused with being official.
Among monetization issues for example Dota2 had a very popular touhou map called Touhou Avatar Dream Battle, whose popularity and merits basically lead it to leak outside of the touhou sphere : there is was no issue there, HOWEVER the author of the map attempted to put monetization in there : Dota 2 mods not being part of ZUN's approved "distribution(?)" venues, he basically had the guy who put monetization in there to stop (the guy apologized and the issue is solved, but that's an example)
But while violation towards the guidelines is ground for team ZUN to react, the touhou guidelines actually have no legal value
strictly speaking, anyone who does Touhou work (especially the monetized ones) can get copyright struck by ZUN for IP infringement, and that regardless of how guideline compliant or not you're being, but he doesn't cuz he's just cool like that.
crowdfunding
for example the train stations collab (iirc, could have been buses)
Atre collabs, the maid cafes
the karaokes and arcades with touhou stuff
Main risk here is that even licensed, there's the risk for such or such work to do things in a way that's not really consistent with Touhou doujin values : for example, a presumably canceled gacha from last year that did very suspicious things such as doing a crowdfunding in disguise y basically allowing the to-be players to pay for some perks.
but generally, there's a consensus among the japanese side that wherever ZUN makes his work available, you can put your stuff there too
Guidelines are super tolerant towards physical works (as that's where the mingling and the trading traditionally happens for doujin stuff)
- The Touhou project guidelines is a product of its time, but continues to evolve alongside contemporary touhou doujin
- ZUN is not a robot that systematically enforces the guidelines and may give leeway to some creators, respect and trust is important
- The boundary between commercial and doujin works as well as related practices need to be clearly defined
As for the conclusion, and considering a recent-ish interview where ZUN basically said that he's not really comfortable with Touhou fanwork crowdfunding cuz of uncertainty if the guys are even gonna deliver, the bottom line is that ZUN obviously don't want to risk trouble from some unrelated party doing commercial stuff with his IP but without his control : doujin is fine cuz you just make something and sell it. But a proper business venture that uses Touhou that may go wrong that is not under his supervision ? Legal trouble are annoying for all parties involved, always best to nip the issue in the bud.
De-facto "ZUN approved works" and "Licensed works" are the same things and in Japanese Touhou community they are called "Officially approved works". (In addition, most parts in official works which were made not by ZUN are considered officially approved (for example character designs))Hmmm the main difference I meant to bring up here is the legal aspect. Licensing agreement are signed, official stuff + come with the usual "licensed by Team Shanghai Alice" or so, but the "ZUN approved works" I meant to say here are the ones that have NO legal framework as a basis. The thing regarding Cookie work as an example cuz ZUN is clearly aware of it AND do nothing about it despite the use the character likeness contrary to what the guidelines say (so he can be said to have given his tacit approval here), or arguably the memories of phantasm fanime when it first came out (I believe small changes towards the way animation is done was made in the guidelines in order to accomodate it)
Well, TJD uploads on Youtube were struck the next day after the release of the album. And it was quite funny, because at first on Monkybiten's channel only tracks 1-10 were struke and only in a hour track 11 was struck. (I have an impression that someone gave links to ZUN team). And DMCA drama... In addition there are CC now, which are glad to help.I mean, this falls more within the realm of copyright infringement rather than touhou guideline violation. I wouldn't be surprised if Team ZUN or the guys that they got to protect their copyright on youtube paid extra attention when it comes to the newly released music CD. Newer music CDs were virtually unfindable in youtube in the past cuz copyright, but things seems to have eased up these days.
But still, sometimes ZUN/Ruw does it.Regarding a-certain-crowdfunding-fiasco-that-shan't-be-talked-from-2015, Ruw was actually quite enthusiastic about it and excitedly showed it to ZUN. It's ZUN's "that's no good" reaction / comment to the crowdfunding initiative that got Ruw to take action, pretty much a 180° from his initial position. So dunno who all the guy copyright enforcers besides ZUN are. There was a small issue a while back where some person got a copyright claim from some unheard of company for using a touhou related song. I don't remember the details and don't quite recall if there was foul play nor who were these guys, but the anglophone overseas community basically speculated that these were the guys who handled ZUN's copyright on youtube. I could be wrong cuz it's a small "issue" that I've heard super briefly (I don't even remember what the full story behind the copyright issue was), but basically my point here is that all of the guys who protect ZUN's IP are not necessarily on the same page as him : Ruw can be aggro on matters where ZUN could be cool or the opposite, and the various entities that are in charge of such or such aspect of ZUN's copyright might not even be familiar with how things goes in the community and react excessively.
Well, fans uploaded their works on MelonBooks or Booth before ZUN mentioned them in guidelines. So this works slightly differently.I mean these are doujin retail stores, the likes of which are approved by the guidelines. What I was mainly thinking about here would be sites such as playism (back when it wasn't closed) when ZUN put DDC there, the PS4 store back during the Play,doujin! initiative which got ZUN's okay, and pretty much Steam and Spotify nowadays. What I'd consider to be "interesting cases" here would be sites where ZUN is absent yet occasionally get some use from fan creators when it comes to the online distribution of their fan creation (for example Bandcamp, Pixiv fanbox, ...). There was also a small change towards the guidelines where ZUN allowed monetization of Touhou videos on video sharing sites, where he is virtually absent from too (he technically is on youtube but hasn't done anything with the channel ever since ISC trailer)
how to achieve this in practice outside of doujin events in mid-00s when the popularity of Touhou was not very big?I think hypothesis and theories are uneccessary here, cuz there's already the past success of Touhou (non replicated around the time) to learn from. However circumstances have changed from then, especially considering the rise of online spaces (which gives more strenght to whatever IP gets boosted by sudden viral success) + the normalisation of non-niche categories in comiket (specifically mainstream gacha and vtubers), meaning that small grassroots IPs can't necessarily compete for the attention of the masses. Imo past success cannot be replicated with whatever means it is that allowed Touhou to grow : if there is a lesson to be learned, it would be from the side of the rise of gachas or more commercial IPs : what is it that they do that we don't ? And is it gonna be healthy for Touhou doujin to follow these successfull practices ?
Somewhat agree. But does ZUN control HSWA activities? Does he control commercial activities related to Touhou in other countries? (Spoiler: he doesn't)Here the problem is the initiative of various people who may be familiar with touhou BUT not necessarily in touch with the scope of acceptable activities. This example isn't exactly related to ZUN directly, but take for example Shibayan records and its Tiny Adamantium arrange of Yuuka's theme. : the short of it is that some guy made a lazy """"""arrange""""" of it, SIGNED A LABEL RECORD for their """""arrange""""", had the arrange registered and protected by copyright, AND copyright struck Shibayan record (at the time) for infringingement. Without getting into to much detail about that case, I think we can all agree that the label record thingy was a tad excessive. When it comes to concluding licensing agreement, ZUN and gang are expected to perform their due diligence, and whatever scummy practices (ass in legal but not conform to our doujin ways) their partener may engage in will be unfortunate but valid : the blame would lie on ZUN and gang for not researching their partner properly and giving their license to suspicious people. However, It's completely different when it's about an independant doujin creator who does touhou stuff BUT want to handle their creation in a way that's arguably not really fitting with touhou doujin. Let's suppose for example that I make a touhou doujin called "Tenshi's great adventure", with clear depiction of characters and setting familiar to the series : there would be no issue there, HOWEVER if I decided to go to Shueisha to publish "Tenshi's great adventure" there would be problems.
3) Agree, but it would be hard because there is no strict definition of doujin.While that's true, imo more conventional commercial practice could be used as the boundary (as in, if we can't be sure about what to call "doujin practice", at the very least be clear about commercial practices), with exceptions set for Touhou doujin established practices & acceptable distribution sites or even ZUN approved initiatives (selling your game on Steam, somehow managing to get ZUN's ok for crowdfunding ...)
Hmmm the main difference I meant to bring up here is the legal aspect. Licensing agreement are signed, official stuff + come with the usual "licensed by Team Shanghai Alice" or so, but the "ZUN approved works" I meant to say here are the ones that have NO legal framework as a basis.
I mean, this falls more within the realm of copyright infringement rather than touhou guideline violation. I wouldn't be surprised if Team ZUN or the guys that they got to protect their copyright on youtube paid extra attention when it comes to the newly released music CD. Newer music CDs were virtually unfindable in youtube in the past cuz copyright, but things seems to have eased up these days.
Ruw was actually quite enthusiastic about it and excitedly showed it to ZUN. It's ZUN's "that's no good" reaction / comment to the crowdfunding initiative that got Ruw to take action, pretty much a 180° from his initial position.
So dunno who all the guy copyright enforcers besides ZUN are.
There was a small issue a while back where some person got a copyright claim from some unheard of company for using a touhou related song. I don't remember the details and don't quite recall if there was foul play nor who were these guys, but the anglophone overseas community basically speculated that these were the guys who handled ZUN's copyright on youtube.
basically my point here is that all of the guys who protect ZUN's IP are not necessarily on the same page as him : Ruw can be aggro on matters where ZUN could be cool or the opposite, and the various entities that are in charge of such or such aspect of ZUN's copyright might not even be familiar with how things goes in the community and react excessively.
What I'd consider to be "interesting cases" here would be sites where ZUN is absent yet occasionally get some use from fan creators when it comes to the online distribution of their fan creation (for example Bandcamp, Pixiv fanbox, ...).
I think hypothesis and theories are uneccessary here, cuz there's already the past success of Touhou (non replicated around the time) to learn from.
However circumstances have changed from then, especially considering the rise of online spaces (which gives more strenght to whatever IP gets boosted by sudden viral success) + the normalisation of non-niche categories in comiket (specifically mainstream gacha and vtubers), meaning that small grassroots IPs can't necessarily compete for the attention of the masses.
Imo past success cannot be replicated with whatever means it is that allowed Touhou to grow : if there is a lesson to be learned, it would be from the side of the rise of gachas or more commercial IPs : what is it that they do that we don't ? And is it gonna be healthy for Touhou doujin to follow these successfull practices ?
When it comes to concluding licensing agreement, ZUN and gang are expected to perform their due diligence, and whatever scummy practices (ass in legal but not conform to our doujin ways) their partener may engage in will be unfortunate but valid : the blame would lie on ZUN and gang for not researching their partner properly and giving their license to suspicious people.
However, It's completely different when it's about an independant doujin creator who does touhou stuff BUT want to handle their creation in a way that's arguably not really fitting with touhou doujin.
While that's true, imo more conventional commercial practice could be used as the boundary (as in, if we can't be sure about what to call "doujin practice", at the very least be clear about commercial practices)
somehow managing to get ZUN's ok for crowdfunding ...
1) Crowdfunding is a doujin thing or not?Hmmmm it's a bit risky to give an authoritative answer as I'm not a researcher nor an "insider" / proper expert on the matter. In principle doujin are self published passion projects, and profit is not a priority, while profit is the most important thing in commercial activities (while I presonally believe the legal aspect ought to be considered as legally binding stuff seems a bit contrary to doujin's freedom of creation) ; furthermore, the scale of operation (be it for production, distribution, probably even marketing and merchandising) is obviously gonna be extremely limited for the hobbyist side while far superior for the more commercial side.
2) Getting money from business is a doujin thing or not?
3) Getting money from government is a doujin thing or not?
4) Having a real-life fanmade Touhou-cafe is doujin or commercial thing?
5) Online sales events (like the ones on pictSQUARE) are doujin events or not?
For different people the answers for these questions are different.
Hmmmm it's a bit risky to give an authoritative answer as I'm not a researcher nor an "insider" / proper expert on the matter.
In principle doujin are self published passion projects, and profit is not a priority, while profit is the most important thing in commercial activities (while I presonally believe the legal aspect ought to be considered as legally binding stuff seems a bit contrary to doujin's freedom of creation) ;
furthermore, the scale of operation (be it for production, distribution, probably even marketing and merchandising) is obviously gonna be extremely limited for the hobbyist side while far superior for the more commercial side.
For 1) Considering the potentially massive financial scale that crowdfunding *could* reach and how it distinguisshes itself from the usual doujin's profit-second-hobby-first motive, it can be said to be more commercial than doujin. However, crowdfunding IS acceptable for general doujin, for the pure and simple reason that there are doujin works that rely on crowdfunding out there. It's only a bit of an issue in the Touhou doujin side cuz of ZUN's position
For 2) If you're paid to do work, then that's just that. There are for example circles and artists notorious for doing doujin who make stuff that some companies pay them for : for examples a variety of touhou circles that made made something for touhou gacha games. Considerations differs depending on whether you're an employee or a someone notorious in the doujinshi sphere that got commissioned to do work cuz of notoriety: it depends on the arrangements you have with the guy who paid you, but imo these'd be commercial works produced by someone notorious for their doujin works. For example, there was a small conversation on twitter where someone asked if the circle "Hatsunetsumiko's" was going to release the songs they made for cannonball, but they said no cuz the songs's copyright belong to the guys behind Touhou cannonball.
For 3) Depends if you're being subsidized by the government or just commissioned to put some work out there imo. For the former (as in, a circle subsidized by the government), I personally am not familiar with specific examples, but in such a case the circle can't possibly be bearing the full brunt of the financial risk like how circles are traditionally conceived to (doujin ideally being considered a hobbyist thing where profit is secondary), so it would be highly non-doujin-like. Although it would be different if there was a proper government doujin circle (for spreading awareness for example) : there was for example this certain japanese official who was a notorious otaku that was quite familiar with touhou (forgot the name, but we''ve seen him wear the touhou glass circle's Tenshi glasses) and even joined events as a circle to publish touhou related book (a Mokou book iirc) with awareness spreading message in it, but I can't confirm whether that was done with his own pocket money or the government's ; while for the latter, you're just doing work that you were paid to do BUT certainly still retain your status as a doujin circle : ZUN works as an example when he composed Wolves of Nanatsushi song for the benefit of Tabayama village officials (no details on their agreement, but likely not for free imo) : it's still a ZUN song that's part of a Touhou mini album.
4) Hmmm, probably already discussed previously. The means of advertisement is probably what's gotta be considered. With Touhou as an example, there's a difference between the spaces that are formally acknowledged by ZUN like touhou cure cafe and yomiuriland, which are spaces frequented by just anyone BUT made a specific touhou theme event + marketed that versus bars (for example) with owners familiar with touhou that do not have an official affiliation with ZUN yet make their own touhou things discreetely (as in, none of the "we're a touhou bar, guys ! Come here for touhou stuff" thingy).
5) I am not super familiar with PictSQUARE nor how things goes there, but even outside of touhou, it's pretty common for doujin creators to put their stuff for sale online. Doujin is a pretty old thing, and it has always traditionally been a physical thing first and foremost cuz there was neither adequate technology nor the proper infrastructure (plus legal recognition) to conveniently support doujin related activities : this means that physical meet up has always been the standard in the past. Imo, online space is just the natural progress for doujin (it's way more efficient than readying your booth, packing your bags, getting everything ready, waiting for people to buy your stuff or queueing the long lines, ...), and ought to be considered doujin too (not familiar with proper touhou related examples here)
I think overall it remains a confusing and yet-unsettled topic, but on one hand we can PROBABLY take in consideration 1) the hobby or profit motive, 2) the scale of the activity (large volume of money, means of production, big marketing and advertisment capabilities for example seem a bit too much for the regular doujin activity guy), 3) the status and notoriety of the involved parties (is such or such thing mainly backed by big company A or something ?). Just my opinion, could be wrong, and probably not comprehensive in all the possible aspects. Just about anyone can call themselves doujin and put their work out, it's probably worth it imo to take in consideration their notoriety and involvement in typically doujin spaces / activities (having their work for sale on doujin retail stores, participating in Comiket and the like, ...) on one hand AND take in consideration the scale of their activities.
A small, but interesting update.So in the most recent end and developments is... :fullpower:All that is and keeps "Well enough and Around enough the Light-Gray-to-White border area of More Doujin than Commercial" truly ends well... granted at the present and future time they are "Constant in Doujin and Equivalent Collarati eAspects Advantaged...
Boundary Satellite Cafe (秘封珈琲店 (https://www.1569.design/bscafe)) was held at last Shizuoka Reitaisai (https://x.com/touhou_ktkr/status/1903664664397193704). The fact of collaboration (https://x.com/kiku1569/status/1895789381644104124) between Touhou cafe and Reitaisai (https://x.com/HakureijinjyaS/status/1903680608112456005) is already interesting.
+ there was collaboration sake (https://x.com/sake_online/status/1901255773856190519) again.
But what is even more interesting is ZUN attending them (https://x.com/kiku1569/status/1903742719425434097).(https://i.imgur.com/91fSmL2.png)(https://i.imgur.com/YjLWIgz.jpeg)So yes, from now such activities may be considered in light gray (if not white) zone. So this may be considered as the end of this story.
By the way, there are plans for collaboration with Kouroumu (https://x.com/hifucoffee/status/1904400092045734370).