Fanfic Forensics

Cross-posted from the Let's Manga blog. Online store J-List is offering English and French translations of dojinshi by Linda Project (link definitely not safe for work), a circle famous for erotic works featuring, among others, characters from Bleach and Street Fighter. Since the site, which is based in Japan and ships worldwide, claims in its footer that "J-List only carries legal, legitimate Japanese products that are purchased through normal Japanese distribution channels and/or licensed from the original content creators", I'm very curious about the copyright logistics of this situation.

No matter how well-known Linda Project is, it seems quite unbelievable that they'd have special dispensation from the copyright holders of Bleach to create the kind of material they produce or that J-List has official permission to translate and distribute outside Japan dojinshi featuring Bleach characters. Of course, creating dojinshi without permission from the original copyright holders is nothing special and tacitly condoned. "Legally" distributing "official" translations outside Japan is something else entirely, methinks. I wonder if there's going to be some kind of follow-up on this.