This is spurred by this question:
Why are anime music videos admitted in anime conventions?
This question is asking about the legality of music videos at conventions.
I don't believe questions asking for legal advice are a good fit for anime.SE, because we're not lawyers. The usefulness of any answers is very suspect also, for the same reason.
Not to mention that legality differs from country to country, so any answers provided will differ greatly from region to region.
Thoughts?
This seems like an odd reason to exclude something. I mean, there are folks asking questions about plot points from folks who aren't the writers, and even the creation of anime/manga being answered by folks who are not involved in it... Even though you would hope to attract experts in each topic, at this point there will naturally be a lot of questions that either can't be answered, or must be answered by someone who is not an expert in the topic - hopefully by drawing on information provided by someone who is.
Now, I tend to agree that questions asking for legal advice should be off-topic, not because they would put answerers in danger but because they're not about anime or manga.
But the question you use as an example isn't asking for legal advice. It's asking for help understanding certain policies within the anime community which appear to be blamed on copyright law.
Focusing on the legal aspect here seems to be missing the point. Are anime conventions on-topic? Are anime music videos on-topic? These are the more important questions, and seem to fall in line with many other discussions on the topicality of anime / otaku-related culture here.
I agree.
This subject is very borderline, because the question can ask about anime/manga in particular, however, by nature, most of us cannot answer such questions reliably.
I say we go for safe here, and not accept legal question, especially without any sort of official disclaimer about how the information given here is not legal advice and so on and so forth.
I disagree.
I've made that question and I got a very precise answer, quoting an interview I've never heard about before by the intellectual property specialist of Funimation. The quality of the answers is often determined by the quality of references, and after that an the other answers at that question the AMV acceptance in anime worlds by both copyright holders and fans is more clear to me. SE is made for this.
Clearly, a disclaimer will be useful to avoid misunderstanding about the scope of the site and I absolutely agree to write it down. But it should not block questions that are about a popular form of derivative works made by fans in public events like anime conventions. It's a social subject, reducing it to a subject only lawyers can talk about is detrimental because ignore the context.
I think this kind of questions is going to be rare. Rare enough that there is no point to make a rule about it.
If we make too many rules, we'll get lost in them. We need clear, easy to follow guidelines, and not a precedent law that depends on a million clauses and needs deep study to understand what is and what is not acceptable. So, while I think this question is a poor fit, no matter what we do about it, we shouldn't use it as something to make rules - for our own good.
Elsewhere it was suggested that maintaining an exceptionally long and growing list of resources is a headache not worth the benefits. I assure you a long and growing list of rules to follow and obey is a far worse headache.
