Japanese Authorities Refer 'Spoiler Website' Operators To Prosecutors in Rare Corporate Copyright Case (coda-cj.jp) 14
Japanese police referred five individuals and a company to prosecutors last week for allegedly operating a website that published detailed movie plots without permission from rights holders. The Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters and Minamisanriku Police Station sent the case to the Sendai District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act.
The Content Overseas Distribution Association described the case as having "very few precedents for a corporation being referred to the prosecutor's office on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act, making this an extremely rare case."
The website posted detailed content from films including "Godzilla Minus One" and four others copyrighted by Toho, "Shin Kamen Rider" and two others by Toei, "Neck" and one other by KADOKAWA, and "Shin Ultraman" by Tsuburaya Productions. The site listed more than 8,000 films with complete storylines, character names, dialogue, and scene descriptions.
The Content Overseas Distribution Association described the case as having "very few precedents for a corporation being referred to the prosecutor's office on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act, making this an extremely rare case."
The website posted detailed content from films including "Godzilla Minus One" and four others copyrighted by Toho, "Shin Kamen Rider" and two others by Toei, "Neck" and one other by KADOKAWA, and "Shin Ultraman" by Tsuburaya Productions. The site listed more than 8,000 films with complete storylines, character names, dialogue, and scene descriptions.
So these 5 people messed with Japans mafia? (Score:3, Funny)
There are a couple rules that you have to follow for your own personal safety and security in Japan:
- Don't mess with Godzilla or disrespect Godzilla-Domo. They did.
- Don't mess with the Japanese animation Mafia, Which they explicitly did, as KADOKAWA Is basically a version of a corporate mafia.
Japan is one of the safest countries in the world because the mafia there actively makes sure of it, but that also means that you need to understand that law enforcement while weaker in Japan has a secondary market that actively works with the first market and the official people and the Mafia in Japan actively works with the police.
This happened because those five Peasants messed with Godzilla and the Animation Mafia, and if they had not angered the royals, they might actually still have a life.
Spoiler for Japanese porn viewers: (Score:4, Funny)
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Next you'll be telling us that Japanese women don't squeak when you f*ck them.
Re:Spoiler for Japanese porn viewers: (Score:5, Funny)
True story, I got a friend that married a Japanese woman. He can't be around the dogs when they break out their squeak toys without getting all sweaty. It's frightening to behold.
Re:Spoiler:Women not pixelated down there (Score:2)
Darn, my libido expects pixels. Now I'll have to pull stickers off Rubik's Cubes and put them there. Either that, skip the ladies and do the cubes.
Spoiler alert (Score:3)
Rosebud is the sled.
Fight Club (Score:2)
The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club
That's Not How Copyright Works (in America) (Score:2)
Under American copyright law you can't copyright an idea, only a specific piece of writing. In other words, if these sites posted movie scripts for upcoming movies, they could get in trouble, because the movie companies own a copyright on those scripts.
However, you CAN NOT copyright an idea! As long as you describe the spoiler yourself, in your own writing, an American site would be so clearly in the right that anyone attempting to take them to court would be laughed out by the judge.
Now, maybe Japanese c
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As I recall, Gerald Ford won a lawsuit against the Nation for revealing information from his new book about his pardon of Richard Nixon. The Supreme Court case is Harper Row vs Nation Enterprises.
No, the publisher won against a magazine for publishing an article that contained 300-400 words verbatim that went beyond isolated phrases before the publication of the book. The magazine claimed fair use because the information was of public interest. Had the magazine only paraphrased or just quoted limited isolated phrases, they likely would have prevailed.
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Had the magazine only paraphrased or just quoted limited isolated phrases, they likely would have prevailed.
Perhaps, but that is not what the court said. Taking 300-400 words worth of excerpts from a full length book is not a lot, as one of the dissents pointed out. The real issue was that they scooped the story, not that they quoted too many words.
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I believe someone wrote a novel about that basic idea. Basically, law abiding aliens who have never heard music before are suddenly exposed to music from Earth and their entire civilization gets essentially addicted for a while spending basically all their time listening to music. After they come out of the fog of initial exposure, they learn a little more about copyright law on Earth and realize just how much they now owe for trillions upon trillions of incidents of music "piracy".