The Tokyo Contents Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) reported on Wednesday that the Miyagi Prefectural Police and Tomi Police Station arrested three men on Tuesday for allegedly copying stories from movies and other copyrighted works and posting them on websites, violating Copyright Law.
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The arrested men include a 38-year-old company manager in Shibuya Ward, a 33-year-old company employee in Shinjuku Ward, and a 45-year-old part-time employee in Kodaira City.
According to CODA, between January and February 2024, the arrested man copied detailed content of the 2023 live-action movie, including the entire story, character names, lines and actions, scenes and developments. Godzilla minus one movie, another copyrighted movie Thatand 2018 Overlord III Anime series, copyright owned by Kadokawa. The content was posted on a so-called “spoiler website” run by the arrested man’s company without the permission of the rights holder.
CODA said that after a police investigation, it was discovered that the company’s management and employees colluded to systematically infringe copyright and operate the website for profit, which received a large number of clicks.
According to CODA, these “spoiler sites” that transcribe the complete content of the movie are considered problematic. CODA explained that the act of transcribing is not considered an infringement compared to piracy or illegal uploading to websites, but it is still an act that goes beyond the scope of citation and is obviously a serious crime of copyright infringement.
CODA added that the problem with these “spoiler sites” is that they reduce people’s desire to pay a fair price for content, which can lead to people not watching the full movie, causing huge damage to rights holders.
Source: Content Overseas Distribution Association website, Yomiuri Shimbun Online (Yaraon!)
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation and the majority shareholder of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
