Today’s social media users see copyright conflicts on a regular basis, but probably due to the way copyright is enforced, tend to view images and text as faiir game when compared to movies and music. In Japan, where the concept of fair use isn’t recognized, there’s arguably less cause for confusion. For those who misjudge the limits, however, things can go downhill extremely quickly.
First Case of its Type in Japan
This week local anti-piracy group CODA revealed details of a copyright prosecution that’s so unusual, it’s probably never happened before.
On October 29, officers from Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters and Tome Police Station arrested three men on suspicion of violating copyright law. CODA says the men are suspected of transcribing the details of two or more films and then reusing that content without obtaining permission from rightsholders.
“Between January 2023 and February 2024, the men transcribed detailed information about the entire story, including the names of characters, lines, actions, scenes, and scene developments depicted in the film Godzilla 1.0,” CODA reveals.
The rights to that movie and another whose name is yet to be revealed, are owned by Toho Co., Ltd. Publishing giant Kadokawa, among others, hold the rights to the anime movie ‘Overlord III.’ It’s alleged that without obtaining permission from rightsholders, the men – who appear to work for the same company – ‘extracted’ the text and other distinuishing features from the movies, added relevant images, then displayed the resulting articles on a website.
“This case was investigated by the Miyagi Prefectural Police, and CODA coordinated with the affected rights holders, which led to this crackdown,” CODA explains.
“As a result of the police investigation, it was discovered that the company’s management and employees had conspired to systematically commit copyright infringement, and had operated the website for profit, attracting a large number of hits.”
Text Extraction, Like Spoiler Sites, Are Considered Problematic
Opinions differ on so-called ‘spoiler sites’ for reasons beyond copyright, but CODA views the publication of texts extracted from copyright works as generally problematic. While some consider this less damaging than uploading a full movie, CODA says that when use of copyrighted text goes beyond the scope of quotation, copying and distribution amount to serious crimes.
The exact nature of the suspects’ business isn’t clear but the details suggest that whatever it is, lines were crossed in pursuit of money.
“The problem with sites that extract text from movies and other content is that they reduce people’s desire to pay a fair price for content, which can lead to people not seeing the official full-length movies, causing great damage to rights holders,” the anti-piracy group explains.
“In addition, the act of infringing on content that creators have spent time, effort, and money to create and unfairly obtaining advertising revenue, is extremely malicious and should never be tolerated.”
