Updated on May 1, 2006.
Put up Chinese version of this site.
Thanks a lot to Natsume for voluntaring to translate the page!
Remember back in 2002, those carefree days when there were a lot of Japanese KH fansites everywhere and there was no need to answer quizzes
to get into them? It lasted for a while but then WHAM, Dizney Japan came farting into the Japanese fandom and crapped all over them with
their freaking strict copyright infringement and ordered all of these KH fansites to close down. Everyone was sad/mad over this. Both the
Japanese and us non-Japanese.
But this definitely wouldn't stop artists from drawing something they love with all their hearts, so slowly people started building
their fansites again. But this time, they're doing it underground. In other words, Dizney Japan and Squenix must NOT know about these
fansites no matter what. So how do they make sure? By putting up quizzes in their fansite, thus limiting the visitors of their website
to only die-hard fans of the games who surely won't leak info to those companies.
Unfortunately, foreigners don't seem to understand this, and have made some mistakes when visiting these fansites. This must be stopped!
Chances are that you're endangering the life of these fansites and might even bring these fansites' web-admins to prison. You surely don't
want to do that, right? If you're saying the opposite, get out of this place, bitch.
So here are the guidelines that I advise you to follow:
1. Do not use other people's artworks WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. Yes, I'm looking at you icon-makers!
The Online Fanart Protection union stressed this. Every single Japanese fansite out there stressed this. Every single Japanese
fansite out there even put these warnings in English/Chinese/Korean/Mambojambo so that every non-Japanese-speaking visitor to their
websites will get that freaking idea. But no, everybody ignored that. HOW IS IT SO FREAKING HARD TO UNDERSTAND THAT THESE PEOPLE REALLY
DON'T WANT THEIR ARTWORKS TO BE USED OUTSIDE OF THEIR WEBSITE?
If you're thinking "It's okay, I'll credit them and they'll be flattered by this", ARE YOU STUPID? That's pretty much like stealing
money from someone and showing them what you're doing. And no, they won't be flattered. (Okay, maybe a little bit but they'll be more
angry than flattered.) If you're thinking "Fine, I won't credit them or anything and just secretly use their artwork as my icon", you
clearly need a slap on the face REAL HARD.
... Okay, so maybe this doesn't really have anything to do with KH fansites but it still applies. Just thought I'd give a little
reminder on it.
2. Do not go into any official websites by Dizney/Squenix before and after going into fansites.
Have you heard of link referrers? Link referrers are trackers that are put into websites so that people can track where their
website visitors come from. Free link referrers can only track websites that link to those websites by active links, but it's
definitely not the same for commercial websites. Commercial websites can track what website you were in before and after going
into their website, even if you used the address bar or your Internet browser's bookmarks. (I believe it's because they want to
see what interests their visitors have so they can increase their productivity... or something)
So if you went into, say, Throne's (mispelled on purpose) official website right after visiting a KH fansite that you really
like, you've pretty much revealed that site's URL. OH NO!! So please, remember the rabbits fansites before you go anywhere else.
Go into Yahoo or MSN's homepage or wherever as an 'in-between' website.
3. Do not use online bookmarkers like Yahoo's, etc to bookmark these sites.
These fansites already set up their sites to not show up in search engines so that those companies-which-must-not-be-spelled-correctly
can't find them through search engines. But online bookmarkers make their sites easily visible on the net and, for the hundredth time,
they don't want that. Use your internet browser's bookmarker, please. If you have problems bookmarking sites using your internet browser,
then too bad for you. There are other ways to bookmark sites, like keeping the URLs in a text file and then copying-and-pasting them into
the address bar and so on; just don't use online bookmarkers, please.
4. Do not give out the passwords or password-equipped URLs of these fansites to the public.
Not on your blog. Not on your website. Not in an LJ community. Not in your myspace/xanga/lalala. NOWHERE.
Please don't plug fansites/give away passwords in friends-locked LJ entries, too. Especially in active links.
The web-admins may not be able to read your entry but they can still see the URL in their trackers, which is a good enough sign to
tell them someone's 'harassing' them. You may not intend to harass them, but that's how they're seeing it.
5. "Um... What if I send an email to a friend to give them the passwords/URLS?"
Not that, either. And yes, these fansites have link referrers that can tell them you linked to their website through an email. Scary, huh?
6. "Hey, I thought you've shared URLs in somewhere public before."
Yes, I admit that. But I regret doing that now and I've realized my errors, so that's why I made this site - to prevent others
from repeating them.
7. "But I reeeaally need to show this certain fansite to my friend and I'm sure they won't tell about it to anyone else!
Besides, there's this fansite where I can't figure out the answer to their quiz and I can't even email that site's web-admin
for any hints because I can't speak Japanese, so can't there be some exceptions or something!? *sob sob*"
I... kinda understand your feelings there. And there IS a way to get around it. But you'll have to find out about it yourself!
Sorry. I think there are enough hints in this page to tell you how you can pass URLs around without being detected, anyway. ^_^;;
7.1 "Everyone's doing it, so it's unfair if I can't!"
If there are people out there shoplifting, do you think it's "unfair" that you don't get to shoplift, too? Or, "Hey,
that guy stole that lady's purse! We should go steal other people's purses, too!!" Really,
people should throw away that kind of thinking. And if you see someone else using fanarts without permission,
you should give them a poke about it, and it won't be "unfair" anymore if everyone stopped using fanarts without
permission, right? If poking turned to shoving and a flame war erupted out of that, feel free to email me to ask for
help. I would love to give them a little smacking myself. ;)
8. "I agree with what you say in here and I think more people should know about it. Can I link you?"
By all means, PLEASE. More people need to know about this. It's been driving the Japanese crazy and that indirectly drove me crazy, too! =_=
Feel free to use this banner if you want to! Or make me a better one!
 
Contact:
Maiki
maikister at gmail dot com
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