The Tokyo Olympics and information infrastructure

 My first memory was that of the torchbearers of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. No, the torchbearers were not on television. I waved flags while watching the runners on the wide streets with my very own eyes. The previous time, instead of focusing on the media, all the stops were pulled to develop bullet trains, highways, as well as distribution and transportation networks. It was an industrial society.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be held right smack in the middle of an information society. It will be held in a global city. And as the previous Olympics focused on development, the one after that must focus on maturity. I hope for information infrastructure that will serve as a model to show the international community what a safe, peaceful, and mature country should be.

 In terms of digital networks, Japan is already at the forefront of the world. However, there are still issues to address. Firstly, we have the issue of Wi-Fi. In order to welcome visitors from all over the world, I want to arrange for the availability of wireless broadband throughout the entire city of Tokyo.

 Next, we have the issue of the usage of broadcasting signals. Although digital terrestrial broadcasting is already available, the true test lies on providing new services from now on. I wish to make it possible to use next-generation video services that combine both communication networks and broadcasting networks.

 When the Olympics officially begins, we should not concern ourselves with communications or broadcasting anymore, but instead concentrate on welcoming international visitors with the signage within the city, and making it possible for them to view the progress of all matches via their smartphones. We should also prepare multilingual information and public screenings with 4K/8K ultra-high definition television.

The "Digital Signage Consortium", which I represent, has issued these proposals aimed at 2020.

I want people from all over the world to enjoy the Olympics through multilingual public screenings, while sending messages of encouragement on their smartphones, buying sports goods that athletes are using, or partying and connecting themselves to social media. I hope to build up the excitement, yet show the world a Tokyo and Japan that is safer than anywhere else.

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Summary of strategies by the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property

 The government's plans were decided at a meeting with the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, which I chair. The following are my overall comments.

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 Various policies regarding content were worked out, such as the establishment of funds and amendments to the Copyright Act, but it remains to be seen what the results are from now on. This year, discussions were made about domestic footing and overseas expansion, which form the 2 main pillars of the maintenance of digital networks and the strengthening of soft power. In order to delve deeply into these issues, 2 task forces were set up for archives and music respectively.

 As a result of the discussions, topics such as cloud services, open data, the computerization of education, the usage of archives, and the maintenance of music databases were brought up. How we put these into practice is the problem at hand. We expect much from the ability of the administration to execute these policies.

 A task force focusing on archives was created to promote their use and application with the target of the year 2020. At that point, measures regarding the use and promotion of orphan works were debated. Media that would be considered by the archive task force were specified to be films, music, comics, animated shows, games, and designs, with a desire to put efforts into pop culture.

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 As such, the plans for this year were finally settled. However, the overseas market share of content in the domestic market was 3.8%, showing a decline.

This time, a music task force was established to consider policies regarding overseas expansion, with a desire to further the results of overseas expansion with music as a model.

We are also stressing on policies that coordinate between the fields of content, fashion, food, and sightseeing. I am also putting efforts into activities involving different industries, such as Tokyo Crazy Kawaii, and hope to continue creating such spaces at Takeshiba.

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Summary of strategies by the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property

 The government's plans were decided at a meeting with the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, which I chair. The following are my overall comments.

------------------

 Various policies regarding content were worked out, such as the establishment of funds and amendments to the Copyright Act, but it remains to be seen what the results are from now on. This year, discussions were made about domestic footing and overseas expansion, which form the 2 main pillars of the maintenance of digital networks and the strengthening of soft power. In order to delve deeply into these issues, 2 task forces were set up for archives and music respectively.

 As a result of the discussions, topics such as cloud services, open data, the computerization of education, the usage of archives, and the maintenance of music databases were brought up. How we put these into practice is the problem at hand. We expect much from the ability of the administration to execute these policies.

 A task force focusing on archives was created to promote their use and application with the target of the year 2020. At that point, measures regarding the use and promotion of orphan works were debated. Media that would be considered by the archive task force were specified to be films, music, comics, animated shows, games, and designs, with a desire to put efforts into pop culture.

------------------

 As such, the plans for this year were finally settled. However, the overseas market share of content in the domestic market was 3.8%, showing a decline.

This time, a music task force was established to consider policies regarding overseas expansion, with a desire to further the results of overseas expansion with music as a model.

 We are also stressing on policies that coordinate between the fields of content, fashion, food, and sightseeing. I am also putting efforts into activities involving different industries, such as Tokyo Crazy Kawaii, and hope to continue creating such spaces at Takeshiba.　

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The Music Task Force and databases

 The Music Task Force is a task force commissioned under the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property, and is involved in the international expansion of the Japanese music industry. It is the first effort in studying policies with a focus on music. In the midst of the important subject of advancing the overseas expansion of content, it was established for specific discussions, with the music industry as a model case.

 Why music now? The government explains that the high prevalence of overseas expansion in music, coupled with the rising maturity of industry practices, makes music a suitable model. The industry was compelled to digitalize its content way before text and videos did the same, and quickly became globalized. Therefore, the structure of the industry has undergone huge changes. However, the scale of the Japanese music industry is such that it joins the American music industry as one of the two top music industries in the world, and such that overseas expansion has become an independent theme within the industry. Even without support from the government, it plans to handle digitization and globalization by itself. The plans are to use the music industry as a model to accomplish overseas expansion, and use that to influence other content areas.

However, careful attention should be paid not to business assistance, but to the maintenance of the basic foundations of the industry, as mentioned by President Sakomoto of Shochiku during discussions at an assembly. Giving assistance to businesses that rely purely on support from the authorities will bring about an inefficient allocation of resources, and will retain uncompetitive businesses. Growth strategies and the preservation of traditional culture must never be conflated with each other. It is important for the country to think carefully before choosing how to proceed.

 In light of this, the consolidated policies involve numerous facets, such as the establishment of overseas bases, the strengthening of copyright protection, and the nurturing of talent. Among these facets, the one that I am keeping my eye on is the construction of databases. Specifically speaking, the creation of a database that cuts across the entire music industry.

"Even within the country, there already exist providers that offer data from overseas, such as Sync Music, but in order to provide 'seasonal' information to local fan groups, there is a need to provide additional information, such as that about upcoming concerts, television broadcasts, and new album sales." (From written report)

Based on requests by the music industry, our research office manages and operates "Sync Music", and handles information regarding more than 2000 music artists. With this as a base, we plan to move towards new database concepts and support such next-generation infrastructure like this, as part of the government.

http://www.syncmusic.jp/wordpress/

We will begin to make our move.

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Can Japan be a major archival nation?

 The government's Strategic Council on Intellectual Property has established an "Archive Task Force", and as its chairman, I have consolidated strategies for the propagation of digital property.

When one mentions archives, many things come to mind. Cultural properties, publications, and television programs. Games, animated shows, comics, and music. A multitude of different things exist ranging from public property to commercial property. This is the government's initial foray into considering all these things as a whole in an archival strategy.

Why archive now? There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, there would be an increase in political benefits. From a foreign affairs point of view, it is important to project a Cool Japan image in preparation for the Olympics. From a domestic point of view, the digitalization of education has been officially implemented, thus requiring infrastructure to be constructed for teaching materials. 2020 is the targeted year to achieve both of these.

The other reason lies in the trends of foreign strategic developments. The West, in particular, is incorporating such strategies in full force. Europe sees the handing down of its cultural properties as a way to control the hegemony, and thus is strengthening its efforts in official intervention. In comparison, American IT companies such as Google are moving towards global content management.

 There are numerous issues related to this. Firstly, we have the expansion of services. We will make retrieval systems, as well as the content itself, more comprehensive. In particular, I stress the need for open data, in other words the organization of metadata and the implementation of lateral communication between archival information from various genres. In addition, the main thing to take note in this policy is the close cooperation between the Strategic Council on Intellectual Property and the IT Strategic Headquarters.

The construction of economic models is another important theme. This issue tends to degenerate into arguments over doing something about cultural properties with the national budget, but the more important matter at hand is to develop and encourage the use of archives, which will be valuable to industries, as well as the general public. Whether this can be considered as a business is another issue at hand.

 How do we handle orphan works? How do we deal with copyright? These are important questions to think about. If we try to solve them with just the Copyright Act, it will require far too much time and costs. Instead, we should look into whether they can be operated as economic models, via methods such as the actual implementation of archives and business experiments using orphan works. If they indeed can be operated as such, then citizens will invest in them to start them up. I wish to attach great importance to this approach.

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Discussing the Content Policy with Lawmakers

I was called to a content committee meeting with members of the diet to debate pop culture and Cool Japan. Here are the answers that I gave.

Q. How do you view the competitive power of Korea?

A. Korea’s strategy is clear. Since the administration of Kim Dae-jung, 1) Their strategy fuses content and home electronics, software and hardware. 2) Their strategy concentrates on the international marketplace. 3) Their strategy involves intense government support.

Japan has a lot to learn from their strategy.

Q. What should we do to enter foreign markets?

A. The government should concentrate on distribution. Japanese industry has not yet fully realized how to use the net. Also, Japan has very few broadcasting slots overseas. In the U.S., there are tens of channels in Chinese, 13 channels in Korean, but only one channel in Japanese.

Q. What is causing this problem?

A. I could offer copyright laws and piracy concerns as the issue. However, I believe that the biggest factor is lack of will. Companies that have eaten up the domestic market lack incentive to go for the international market. However, I believe that this situation has come to an end.

Q. Does the government need to be involved or should it be left to economics and culture?

A. Professor Joseph Nye has an international political theory of “Soft Power.” Content policy, even more than industrial policy, should be valued as a cultural and political policy as well. The government should be involved because content policy has more to do with culture than with industry, and is more about international relations than just domestic policy.

Q. Do you have any hints?

A. I hope that we will take advantage of the Tokyo Olympics. It’s an opportunity to distribute content overseas, improve the domestic infrastructure, and promote the expansion of content.

Q. Any other aspects of Japanese culture?

A. If you ask foreigners living in Japan what they would like to bring back to their own countries, they teach you many surprising things. For example, many people value our education system in which elementary students take turns on lunch duty serving their classmates. Also, whereas many people are afraid of the police in their home countries, in Japan anyone can feel comfortable asking them for help. These are things that foreigners would like to spread in their countries. I’m certain there are many more aspects of our culture that we are not yet aware of that can be presented to the world.

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A debate on the future

 I was employed as director of the Japan branch of the international society of Research and Information on Public and Co-operative Economy, which is based on the Keio University Hiyoshi Campus. The main office is in Belgium. The theme is “ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in 2045.”

Many people have imagined what the future of our information society will look like. Many wild fancies have emerged about the High-Level Information Age, New Media Initiatives, Multimedia, Gigabit Societies, etc. Many of these things actually became reality, and in some cases reality has surpassed expectations.

Perhaps because of this, the energy put forth into surveying possibilities for the future seems to have been lost. As media has entered a tempestuous period, it is now the responsibility of academia to once again imagine possible futures.

As such, we gathered engineers, designers, and bureaucrats to a debate. I was the chairperson.

The reason for setting the goal 30 years in the future is that I thought 30 years ago was an important time. Media at the time consisted of telephone and television. A telephone network that had taken 100 years of preparation was complete, and the analog television networks covered the entire country. Then, in the mid-eighties, communications were deregulated and broadcast and satellite channels began to increase.

At the time there were four items on the policy agenda. Cheap, fast, beautiful, and profitable. Would telephone charges become cheaper? Would communication lines become faster? Would broadcast images become more beautiful? Would the media companies profit? The need for all of the items on this agenda has been lost.

Thirty years later, analog has come to an end. We now have PC, mobile, internet, and content throughout the world. The next stage involves multi-screen technology, the cloud, and social media. Once again, things are in disorder.

So then, let’s imagine the world 30 years from now. How will the social economy change? What will become of Japan? What role will IT play? Will its importance increase or diminish? These are the questions that I asked.

As can be expected, the conference ended without any concrete solutions. Listening to everyone’s opinions we could only confirm that media is in a state of chaos.

As children, we imagined a world of video phones and flying cars. Thirty years ago, we imagined a world where one could communicate at any time to anyone anywhere.

Now, the wants of the user have diversified, and we have the problems of cyber wars and flame wars. As technology improves we get to the point where machines can take the place of humans. The future is neither white nor black nor grey. It is still mottled.

Since the goal of the session was to share this situation, I believe that the goal was accomplished.

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