Mainichi apologizes for WaiWai column’s copyright violations
Mainichi has issued yet another apology for its WaiWai column, this time expressing regret that some of the WaiWai articles violated the copyrights of other publishers:
In the column, articles were used without the consent of their publishers — including publishing and newspaper companies. Our follow-up investigation has found that we used and translated articles published by 32 publishing and newspaper companies without their permission.
We allowed another publisher to run some of these WaiWai articles in publications it printed, and received fees for the reprint. We are now in the process of repaying these reprint fees.
We are continuing to apologize to the publishers for violating their copyrights.
Mainichi has pledged to return the money it charged for republication of WaiWai articles, and it plans to “educate management and employees” about copyright issues.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but my understanding was that the WaiWai columns were embellished summaries of news reported by weekly tabloid magazines, not straight translations. If writing summaries and explanations of stories from a foreign language news publications is not acceptable, are news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg paying Mainichi’s publishers money every time they mention news originally reported by Mainichi? And what about the Japan Times’ Tokyo Confidential column?
[hat tip to Fusou Note]
