Japanese Govt Asks US Govt to Stop Using Mario, Pokemono, Naruto Meme Postings
mainichi.jp
mainichi.jp
Oh, I bring this up because of the picture they used in this article.
Boy do you need to visit some other bars!
FWIW, I feel like the press in Finland doesn't try to "win" points by pointing out the humiliation and the utter failure of the current state of affairs in the US, because that point is plainly obvious, but the reporting more closely reflects the forces and agenda going on under the surface.
The embarrassment stuff is more for the coffee-table chitchat and having a collective sigh of relief with your co-workers that we're not so intimately close to the whole mess there.
Just another day in our clown ass country.
Yeah, good thing you only read the realest news, and only interact with the most honest voices in the most earnest manner.
I'm sure if you open most European news publications, then by volume most of the articles will be about how Trump is a goofball (at all times), just like how the parent comment apparently claims. There is no way they simply meant that whenever he is in the news, it's usually not because he was being a respectable fella, and is thus being represented accordingly.
There's a point beyond which it becomes a bit too difficult to believe just innocent gullability, compared to intentionally fanning the flames. I wonder which one applies to you?
But it's a bit more mixed for international awareness. The press isn't suppressed here, but that's not for the lack of trying. There's also a lot of whitewashing of Trump's actions in American media because they are afraid of retaliation. We crossed the Onion territory quite a while ago and people just shrug it off.
In non-journalistic contexts, when person A describes a series of events matter-of-factly from person B's perspective, they're implicitly vouching that the perspective makes sense and B acted reasonably. Otherwise who cares what Person B thinks? But reporters often have to cover Persons B whose perspectives are important to understand (because they're very powerful) yet nonsensical and unreasonable. It's very hard to square this circle for readers who aren't familiar with the problem.
It's not even that. Seeing the different in headlines from the same publications in 2023 vs. 2024 vs. 2025 is staggering. Publications that are otherwise well respected. There's clearly something going on here.
Also, some publications indeed are not legally "news". I'm not surprised how quickly coverage changed for, say, Fox Entertainment (because it's sure not "Fox News").
The fact this doesn't seem to be happening suggests that perhaps the copyright owner doesn't care?
2. A foreign party using U.S. courts to sue the U.S. government has always been a dicey proposition. Some parties are more "equal" than others under U.S. law.
3. The current U.S. regime is petty enough to slap retaliatory tariff's on all of Japan (thereby making Americans pay extra for Japanese goods).
Really, there are no carrots or sticks that work on Trump right now. Americans have not yet had their Magna Carta moment.
Doesn't look like a high stakes case at face value. But if you look at the components individually, there's a lot of the most difficult elements. International law, the three powers interacting, intellectual property...
The matter of the dispute seems inconsequential, but my subjective opinion is that IP often uses a lot of the same judicial mechanisms that higher stakes civil and even criminal cases use, IP is often the guinea pig of the full extent of the law, you'd think it's the other way around, but cases like murder and CSAM often rely on good will, common sense, shared notions of right vs evil, journalism. In cases like IP disputes, whatever judgments are achieved, are done through an almost exclusively mechanistic implementation of the law (with modestly deep pockets fueling the machine, sure it's big companies, but let's not pretend nintendo, LaLiga or even Hollywood run the world).
I'm leaning towards fair use, I haven't seen the actual memes, but if it's truly a meme, that would be transformative. So it wouldn't depend on the fact that one party is an executive branch representing a country, nor the fact that there's two different legal systems. That said, fair use is an American concept, not sure Japan has that. At any rate, this is all mostly American jurisdiction, so if by American courts this is legal according to American rules, Nintendo has an American subsidiary, sells to the US. I'd lean towards there not being a case, but I can see how this might be Nintendo's standard strategy in pursuing a loss-loss scenario by wasting time and lawyer fees in an inconsequential manner. Kind of like a chicken game in game theory. As far as I know the optimal counterstrategy are counterclaims, and claiming legal fees, that would be a legal battle I'd spectate with a popukoruno baketo